


The Merge

by GodIsZombie



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Child Death, Dark, Dark Comedy, Drug Use, Multiverse Theory, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Probably some immortality, Pseudoscience, a dude drops some acid, and like all of the pot, and salvia, just all of it, lots of death, this is a weird thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:38:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodIsZombie/pseuds/GodIsZombie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the end of the world!  Well no, that's misleading really, sorry about that.  It's not only the end of the world.  It's actually a fair bit worse than that.  You see, and I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, this story begins at the end of the universe.  Or rather, the end of two universes.  Universi?  I'm a bit fuzzy on the plurals, but that part's not important.  What is important is this: despite all of the odds, and to the eternal disappointment of all involved, our little planet has merged with another.  The apocalypse is upon us, countless have died, and the internet is gone forever.  We're all quite broken up about it.  Still, considering that the majority of two universes have been ripped apart, turned to clouds of majestically wafting dust, and simply blinked out of existence, it could certainly be worse.  It's always important to look for the silver lining.</p><p>Fair warning, there be no editor here.  This is a first draft just chalk full of mistakes and rambling.  It will get better later, probably.  But for now, you have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And a God did Mutter, "Crap, my bad guys."

Chapter One

And God did mutter, "crap, my bad guys."

 

There was an idea. Granted that is neither a particularly original, not terribly remarkable beginning. But alas, it is ours and we must, as they say, "work with what you've got." Still, for all that our beginning is not, it can't be said that it isn't, at the very least, honest and concise. And I dare say slightly more original, if less flourished, than the old, "once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, yada, yada, yada so on and so forth, and etcetera." There was an idea. You see? Perhaps not great, but a good length from terrible as far as these sorts of things tend to go.

There have, over the course of history, been many ideas. Countless in fact. Some grand and impossibly important. Most, decidedly less so. This particular idea seemed, at the time and to most involved, to fall somewhere in between. Not quite the answer to life, the universe, and everything, but a far cry from, "hey Earl? What you figure'd happen if we got a moose drunk?" This idea was created to answer a series of perplexing and deeply scientific, mathematical questions regarding the Big Bang. And as thrilling as it would be to delve into the complex equations of mathematical speculation, I am a writer. My relationship with any form of mathematics is strained at best. Why geometry and I haven't been on speaking terms since the early 2000's when we had a rather volatile falling out. So, in lieu of of such details I will instead supply generalities. Our idea was born from the brain of a Russian mathematician while he considered his shampoo, as one occasionally does. It's reception was, at best, lukewarm. Though the idea answered several previously unanswered questions, it also raised several more. And most damning of all, this little idea was, as far as anyone at the time could tell, impossible to prove. Undeterred the idea branched out, explored the world, grew, laughed, loved, so on and so forth. Before finally settling into fiction, more specifically, science fiction. Perhaps it was a case of teenage rebellion. Maybe it was just who it really was. Either way it found a happy home and quite a bit of popularity in syfy, eventually reaching the lofty goal of science fiction trope. It's parents, the Russian mathematician and his shampoo, were no doubt suitably disappointed. Muttering to each other about wasted potential at family gatherings that, while certainly loving and joyous reunions, none the less carried with them an awkward and ever so slightly strained undercurrent. The idea, for its part enjoyed it's work, weaving together innumerable plots. Some skillful and compelling. Most decidedly less so.

The idea had many names, as ideas often do, but was most well know as the multiverse theory. You see the universe is, in the simplest terms, our word for everything. All matter and energy as it expands ever outward into the incomprehensible void. It is the divinity we find when we look up and see the cosmos reflected in the night sky. The whizzing, whirling dance of countless heavenly bodies in a ballet massive beyond our ability to understand. It is our world in all of its impossible wonder, and it is us. The entirety of the human race, all that we were, are, and could be. Assuming of course that you, dear reader are in fact human. As opposed to say, a fish of above average intelligence with access to some sort of, waterproof record of my humble ramblings. In which case, you should be pleased to hear that the universe also includes the entirety of Fishkind, my aquatic friend. The multiverse theory is therefore, and as the name implies, the idea that there is more than one everything. Innumerable other universes besides our own, each self contained and independent. Imagine if you would be so kind, bubbles wafting about through the air. Each bubble containing it's own separate and unique universe, with more being consistently blown into existence. Some so different to our own that they hover well beyond the boarder of what we are able to comprehend. But, because matter and energy can only do so much, there are also a fair few that are nearly, if not completely identical to our own. Unsettlingly similar to the most minuscule detail. According to the multiverse theory, countless well intentioned parents and high school counselors were wrong. Not a single one of us are in fact special little snowflakes and uniqueness is but a comforting lie we spend a great deal of energy trying to convince ourselves is true. But hey, cheer up, it's not all bad news. You could have always ended up in one of the universes where you were born a potato. And trust me when I say, no one really wants to be a potato. I would take a moment to apologize to any reader that may be a potato of above average intelligence who has gotten a hold of this book, but really? You know what I'm talking about. A potato's life, while not truly terrible, is still an unfulfilling string of dull boredom and mild annoyances. A fate best avoided if at all possible. At any rate, I feel we've gotten slightly off topic, so, moving right along.

The idea is no doubt easy to understand. This is, in large part, because it is so familiar to us. We all understand alternate universes or parallel dimensions and the no doubt wacky hijinks such things entail. A staple in the world of fiction. That was of course, until things suddenly, and spectacularly changed. As things are, occasionally want to do. On Thursday, the first of May, at exactly 7:18pm CDT theory evolved into fact when our universe collided with another. Collisions aren't, in the grand scheme of things, terribly uncommon. With so many bubbles of existence wafting about the void it's inevitable really. Sometimes two universes foolish attempt to form atop each other. Unwisely trying in vain to occupy the same space at the same time. Other times, as was the case with our ill fated everythings, they just sort of drift into one another. Point being that it happens. And when it does the two universes are more or less left with three options. The first and most common is repulsion. Two bubbles bump into one another and spin off in opposite directions. More or less unaffected by the entire affair. Sadly though this is not what these two particular universes decided on. The second option is destruction. The two everythings run into one another and have a negative, and somewhat melodramatic reaction. Like a bubble popping everything inside suddenly and violently isn't. Matter is ripped apart atom by atom in a moment that seems to exists beyond time, both instantaneous and eternal. Then it's over, matter shifts into energy and energy leeks back into the barren void to be reabsorbed and repurposed. Thankfully both universes seem to disapprove of this particular option as well. The third and by far, the least likely option is the merge. And I'm terribly sorry the final option doesn't rhyme. Sadly there just isn't much to be done about its truly unfortunate lack of symmetry. But, turning back to the task at hand, during a merge two everything's absorbing one another, messily becoming one. The combination rarely goes well, usually disturbing cosmic balance severely enough to wipe out all life, sentient and otherwise in both universes. Even if corners of life indeed continue to survive the trauma, horrific mutations and logical impossibilities become par for the course. This option, quite unfortunately, is what our particular universe ultimately settled on.

The chaos of that moment was unimaginable. The two universes collided with force beyond measure before rushing forward to consume one another. Galaxies blew away, scattered in every direction like dandelion seeds. Matter and energy exploded into existence with a series of pops so loud they were almost audible. Two separate and very different sets physics fought, compromised, and politely decided to agree to disagree all at once in every corner of the confused and expanded everything. A handful of stars exploded into themselves while others blinked in and out of existence in panoramic, trillion mile light shows that extended beyond the confines of space and time. Some of the more unlucky matter found itself occupying the exact same space and time as something else, distinctly different from itself. Everything warped, shook, and shifted a few inches to the left, with the exception of a handful of contrary planets and stars who stepped backwards and slightly to the right for the sake of being different. The entire horse head nebula travels back in time to July 17th 1988 for nearly twelve minutes, which left it terribly out of sorts for weeks afterwards. At one point as the universes became one, both began to sing audibly. They sang the previously silent song that each had hummed since the beginning, the melody of what they are. They sang of galaxies and nebulas, of atoms and cells. They sang of the secrets hidden in black holes, the contradiction of gravity, and the wonder behind creation. They sang of the birth of stars and the fall of nations on plants without number. They sang proudly of the life they had created, hummed the tune of each soul they had witnessed on every planet, in all its delicate complexity. They sang of their own beauty and tragedy. Just as they always had. But for the first time, each and every life in two universes was given the gift of hearing it. The two symphonies rang out, soft at first, but growing quickly. Each celestial hymn fought with the other, warring across the void in an attempt to overtake one another. Their voices harsh and angry even as they sang of impossible beauty. But as the two everything's began to become one, so too did their music begin to harmonize. The songs joined, looping around one another in sloppy, ever tighter circles. Both compromising into something new. Then, oddly enough, for an instant, both came together and, for all the world, seemed to hum a few chords of all along the watchtower. Quite suddenly, the song stopped and for a single, truly horrifying second, everything that ever was or will be was simultaneously itself, something utterly alien, and nothing at all. All of creation held it's breath with fearful anticipation for what came next. But as suddenly as everything had been thrown into chaos, it settled. And the two universes were one.

John Murphy of Sunnydale California was the only soul in all of the joining universes who managed to find the words to speak out during the symphony. He fell to his knees as so many others had, looked up into the heavens with reverent, awestruck eyes, tears streaming unnoticed down his face, and muttered, "play Freebird." Truth the told he was always a bit of an ass and neither universe complied. Although his words would, fifty years later, inspire a nomadic cult who called themselves the Order of Skynyrd, while the rest of the world referred to them by a decidedly less dignified monicker. Namely, the Woodies. This is in part, an apt reference to Woodstock. But was also due in no small part, to the human race's inability to pass up on an available dick joke. The order believed Murphy to be a prophet, whose words were both a guide and a warning. The song became the center of their world view. Initiates spent lifetimes attempting to interpret the deeper meanings behind sweet guitar licks, and believed that, should they ever stop traveling, the world would end as the universe finally sang the most sacred song. They would eventually become most well known for their long southern rock hair and pestering travelers to covert while banging tambourines in much the same way modern hari krishnas bother people at airports. It's funny the way life works out.

Our little planet, and in fact our entire solar system faired surprisingly well all things considered. Despite overwhelming odds we were not immediately wiped out during the merge. Which, all things considered, is pretty good news. Nor was our celestial alignment thrown off in any way that was sure to cause inevitable doom. Well, not as far as anyone could tell anyways. Which really, is all the answer we could, in good conscious, ask for given the situation. Likewise, the planet's core hadn't stopped spinning, and no planet sized asteroids were currently hurtling towards us to the tune of Aerosmith. The moon had not exploded, the Morlocks and Balrog had yet to join forces, and skynet remained blissfully unaware, at least for the time being. Yes, considering the state of things, it would be more than fair to say that Earth had somehow come out on top. That being said, the little planet that could was far from unaffected. Like most things in this new and terrifying everything, our little home had been warped in the merge. Earth and a planet from what had been the other universe had fused, becoming one. Truth be told, what remained after the merge had very little in common with the planet that it had been. The fusion was, messy at best. The result was an upturned patchwork of different realms, illogical, uneven, and blurred. Some swatches of land steadfastly remained as they were, remnants of one planet or the other. Reminders of worlds that would never be again. These were, thankfully the majority. But there was still plenty land from both planets that was simply snuffed out, gone forever and without explanation. Either eradicated entirely or flung away and repurposed in some as yet unknown galaxy. Although what any other galaxy would want with the Eiffel Tower and the left half of the Statue of Liberty is anyone's guess.

Other sections had combined, blurred together in an odd mishmash, simultaneously both. Fused into something new and often dangerous. Excuse me please as I display a firm grasp on the obvious, but nothing was meant to occupy the same space and time as something else. It is a clear and, if you will allow the pun, universal law that a thing is only ever meant to be itself. To do otherwise is to strain against the reigns of reality. The cost of doing otherwise, is often an entity corrupted into something dark. Something our instincts tell us shouldn't be. Something we naturally understand must be feared. Things in fused areas tended to be, as one would expect, a bit off. Gravity had a nasty habit of going slightly askew, changing not just from area to area but also object to object. Resulting in the occasional five ton feather or fir tree floating wistfully upside down and four feet above the ground. Although such examples are the extreme cases, the overall effect tends to be a touch more subtle, and infinitely more unsettling. The terrain in fused zones is, as one would no doubt expect, chaos incarnate, cities ended mid-building to become craggy deserts, lush forests, or towering mountains. The edges jagged, haphazard at best, with neither rhyme nor reason to their pattern. The end result is something that looks a fair amount like the patchwork quilt of an easily distractible lunatic. unsteady ground, land slides, earthquakes, and bizarre weather became, as one would assume, common place in such areas. When combined with the irregularities in gravity and a, shall we say, looser interpretation of several laws of physics, the fused zones become a deadly land to tread.

Finally there are the nowheres. Harsh seams in reality that zig zagged their way across the surface of the new planet. As the two planets combined there were places where things went a bit wrong and reality, at least as far as we are able to perceive it, fell away. This left behind impossible, gaping, holes of absolute nothingness. To describe the nowheres with any sort of accuracy would be a truly Herculean feat of writing. There is neither basic human language or understanding available to convey such ideas. You see, the problem is that nothingness, true nothingness, is a concept we are not built to understand. But I will make my best attempt none the less. Please, if you would be so kind, refrain from holding my inevitable failure against me.

Imagine standing before the yawning maw of such a chasm. A cool bead of sweat trickles lazily down your spine as you gather the courage needed for what you are about to do next. You feel the cold fire of adrenalin rushing in your veins, filling you with an odd sort of jittery calm. The need to move almost as strong as the relentless whine at the back of your mind, urging you to be still. Despite the growing fear sitting heavily in the pit of your stomach and clawing at the back of your throat, or perhaps because it, you find yourself keenly aware of your hands. Your hands are cold and clammy despite the summer heat that surrounds you. The tips of your fingers tingling with the slightest hint of pins and needles. Your arms hang awkwardly at your side and you cannot for the life of you remember a position in which they seem natural. With a final, steadying breath you begin to move forward, eyes fixed determinedly at the ground in front of you. "Slow steady steps, one foot in front of the other, and deep breaths," you tell yourself meekly. The grass, tall and healthy, crunches wetly underfoot, filling the air with a faint hint of green life as the stalks break. The smell is comforting and helps take the edge off, if just barely. Your feet stop, settling side by side as you reach the lip of a jagged tear in the earth. A vicious hole ripped into the planet. You've made it to the edge, the only thing left to do now is look up. Your breath comes out in ragged gasps as you tilt your head and begin to raise your eyes upwards, "I can do this," you reassure yourself, completely unconvinced of the statement's validity even as you say it. You know what the nowheres can do to people. The damage simply looking too deeply into one can cause. You look up all the same. The nothingness before you causes an immediate paradoxical glitch in your brain. For the first time in your existence you have encountered something that your eyes can see, that your body can feel, but your mind cannot comprehend. The information is all there, clearly spelled out before you by your senses and yet you cannot understand. You feel instantly disjointed, your mind and body broken from a single unit to shards of a shattered whole. You war with yourself for a moment that stretches on into eternity. Trying to absorb and understand the data in front of you as violently as you attempt to close yourself off from its offending perplexity and retreat. And then, with an involuntary shudder, you feel something, some internal framework within you begin buckle under the weight. A second later it's broken, and although you aren't exactly sure what it was, you know that you will never be the same without it.

Suddenly, you realize you are looking at the nothingness in front of you with new eyes. No, but that's not quite right is it? It's something else inside of you that's changed. Something that had been so primordially you. Something you can no longer place. Perhaps you've gone mad. You're surprised to realized that's not important anymore, because you are not exactly yourself anymore. Or at least, you don't think so. Rather than continue to ponder the philosophical definition of self, you choose to take in the sight before you. The first thing that strikes you about the nothingness is the color, or lack there of. The thing in front of you is utterly void of color. The first thing that comes to mind is the black emptiness of space, but that's not right at all, because blackness, emptiness, those are still things, and this is, well it's not. The thing is also clearly not transparent, far from it in fact. You certainly can't see anything beyond the nothingness, but then you can't exactly see the nothingness either. Rather you seem to be experiencing it via scattered and contradictory clues. It is neither dark nor light, neither vast nor minuscule, solid nor immaterial. It neither is nor is not. You reach forward, utterly transfixed, to brush your fingers across the surface of the nowhere despite yourself. There is no texture, and yet touching it is distinctly different, although not in any way that can be described. There is no climate. Not hot, not cold, and not the bland numbness of room temperature. Just nothing. The lack of it shocks you more than you thought it would. Such a small, unnoticed thing, and yet without it you feel as if the world has crumbled to dust. The sensation somehow manages to be far less uncomfortable than you believe it has any right to be. Absently, you think this must not be a particularly reassuring sign for your currently somewhat questionable sanity.

Your body trembles with a rush of electricity that's not quite there as your fingertips breach the boundary of the nothingness for a fraction of a second before jerking back. There is no atmosphere in the nowhere, but neither is there even a hint of the needy, sucking void that naturally accompanies a vacuum. Nor is there any sort of direction within its emptiness. You take a moment to gather yourself. Wishing desperately for the language to convey the gap before you, rather than resorting to list everything it is not. But the words won't come, there are no words, could be no words for this. You keep your eyes fixed in the nowhere in front of you. Steady and unwavering, you try in vain to take it in, to discover and understand it in its entirety. But the human brain is not built for this. You know it and yet, you cannot seem to fight this invisible pull. The nothingness terrifies you beyond your ability to understand, beyond anything you believed possible. But still, still there is the urge to explore, to discover, to jump. Your breath hitches in your throat and you begin to tremble as the word spins again and again through your mind; jump. You want to jump. To abandon all reason and plunge into this horrifying, beautiful void. You crave it, hunger so badly that you nearly take a stuttering step forward, over the edge, past the point of no return. Tumbling down the abyss. You are barely able to stop yourself in time, utterly unconvinced you want to stop at all. You must be crazy, you think. This thing must have broken you. But deep down you know better, because this is human nature. We are the creatures who crossed the endless sea, who built wings to fly, and ships to touch the stars. Who mapped out the deepest caves, and clawed our way up the highest mountains. All of it just because we could, just to see and experience. We who have died in droves in the name of curiosity. Willingly throwing ourselves off the cliffs of the unknown. Sacrificing everything for the slightest chance that we may understand a little more on our way down. It is that need that buzzes across your skull now, pulling you ever closer to the edge. Only a little closer now, just a few inches more. It would be so easy... So easy...

The death toll that came with the merge was, as you can easily imagine, astronomical. The vast majority were simply snuffed out of existence to make room for new components. Then there were those who, after the planet reformed, found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Be it two hundred feet up in the air, twenty below ground, or three inches away from a particularly venomous and angry snake. There are all manner of places one should not stand should one wish to continue living. Then of course there were those who found themselves squarely within the boarders of a nowhere. Of the hordes of people who fell into those seams in reality only three ever managed to claw their way out. And it would be difficult indeed to say that any of them were themselves at all after their stay. Not with any certainty at any rate. But those are stories for another time. The truly unfortunate ones were ripped apart to atoms by the sheer force of the merge or cooked alive by stray radiation oozing out of the torn places in the world. There are many horrid ways to die, but few reach the ghastly levels of agony that those poor souls were forced to endure. Next came the natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, twisters, wild fires, volcanos, and ice storms just to name a few. All inevitable side effects that come with the merging of two separate and distinct planets. Finally there were the unnatural disasters. The cataclysm of man and, well, other. But we'll get to that part later. There are many things that humans have made over the years that are both delicate and dangerous. Do you, dear reader, have any idea how many nuclear reactors were in operation around the world at the start of the merge? Of course not! To expect otherwise would be ridiculous! Unless you happen to be one of those types of people who finds great joy in finding out and retaining that sort of information. In which case, hello there. While I do not share in your passion, I still appreciate your unique drive and wish you luck in its pursuit. It's always good to have something that makes you happy, assuming of course that thing is not something like murder, rape, and or pillaging of course. For shame modern day Viking raiders. Your time has come and gone, get a new hobby. Society has become a fair amount more civilized. Or rather, it's gotten much better at pretends to be when people are watching. I personally find crocheting to be quite relaxing, you should give that a go. But that's neither here nor there.

There were a breath and a half over four hundred operational to nearly operational nuclear reactors on earth at the start of the merge. By some merciful twist of luck, or perhaps because of some quirk of the merge that reacted to the high concentrations of radiation. Or most unlikely of all, by the grace of some capricious god who felt the slightest twinge of guilt over the entire situation, the vast majority of those reactors did not make it onto the new planet. When all was said and done forty seven remained, scattered across the globe. Of those sixteen were able to implement an emergency shut down before the reactor went critical. Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, shutting down a nuclear reactor is, all things considered, a relatively simple and straight forward endeavor. Without getting into the somewhat dull particulars, a nuclear reactor is, at its heart a very fancy, very radioactive tea kettle. Using nuclear fusion to boil water and create energy. Shutting one down is all a matter of stopping the chain reaction causing the atoms inside to break apart, thus shutting off the heat. Not quite as easy as flipping switch, or turning a knob, but less complex for the operators running the show than one might expect. Still, given the nature of the merge, it's suddenness, it's destruction, sixteen was an exceptional number. That being said, it was little more than a stopgap. Even shut off, a nuclear reactor is far from safe. The core is still there, nestled into the inner workings, like the tootsie roll center of lethal radioactivity, to the reactors tootsie pop. It still needs to be cooled, be contained. There is quite a bit of maintenance involved. In the face of the unmitigated disasters the merge had created and a serious lack of man power (the depressing side effect of a massive planet wide death toll) that maintenance became impossible. In the end, none of the forty seven were left totally unscathed. While those that went critical immediately were by far the most spectacular, destroying life for miles in every direction, even those that were lucky enough to remain mostly intact continued to be a threat. Slowly leaking radiation and contaminants, they managed to quite effectively poison anything nearby. Water became a problem as many reactors are kept next to large bodies of water to assist in keeping the core cooled. Survivors were not as quick to catch on to the danger as they perhaps should have been, and radiation sickness from repeatedly ingesting contaminated drinking water was far from uncommon in the beginning. Eventually of course we did learn, though the lesson had come with a high a price.

The population of two planets was halved within the first few seconds of the merge. Halved again in the first few months, and the remainder decimated within the first two year. As one cataclysmic flowed, unfettered into the next, turmoil became the word of the day. An absolutely panicked global population, coupled with so few remaining lives, caused government and social order to collapse as if it never existed. With no one left to maintain it, industry, long distance communication, and agriculture, disappeared. Electricity, running water, even tumblr, were all gone in the blink of an eye. The merge was, in no uncertain terms, the end of the world. And then there were the new neighbors.

The two earths, or rather Earth and Dakrin, as the locals had taken to calling it a couple of eons ago, were, in many ways very similar. Mass, radiation levels, general composition. Both were nestled squarely in the Goldilocks zones of their respective solar systems. Not too hot, not too cold, just right for creating life. And create life both most certainly did. As far as what we would consider intelligent life is concerned, well, all of Earth's eggs are more or less in the same basket. It hadn't always been that way of course. Earth originally went with multiple choice, but sadly, homo sapiens were, at the time, determined to be the planets only child. Really not much has changed over the years. Humans have always been the only child that got that way by killing all their siblings. Well, that or fucking them into oblivion. Let's hope that neither option comes across as a familiar family dynamic for any of my readers. In retrospect, the propensity to do whatever it takes to be the one and only might explain mankind's, shall we say, less than warm reception for many of Dakrin's children. Food for thought I suppose.

To describe Dakrin in its entirety would be, as you might imagine, a book in and of itself. An in depth description of its flora, fauna, and landscape would take a lifetime. Dakrin is, after all, an entire planet. But, as that is neither the story I intend to tell, nor the book you came to read, I will be brief. And we will both have to hope that any relevant information I have thus far been forced to ignore in favor of succinct storytelling, will be at the very least glossed over as time goes on. Unlike Earth, Dakrin was, somewhat more liberal in its approach to life. In short, Dakrin passed the gift of consciousness from life form to life form like it was the joint in the back row of a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show on April twentieth. That is to say, there were several options available.

Let's begin with the Croat. Relatively homo sapien in design, the Croat are, in many ways, very similar to us in both appearance and behavior. There are however still enough differences to accurately distinguish between the two races. While humans were created with endurance in mind the Croat are split between endurance and power. Much stronger than us, but not nearly as long lasting. You see humans are, relatively speaking, the energizer bunnies of life forms. We didn't used acquire meat through superior strength, speed, or even intelligence. In truth we just ran longer than our prey, pushing anything we pursued into exhaustion simply because we did not need to quite. Croat's limbs tend to be slightly longer than ours in comparison to their torsos. Likewise they tend to be more naturally muscular than their human counterparts. In addition the Croat have slightly larger eyes and are pentachromats. Humans have three types of cone cells within the eye that allow them to perceive a relatively large spectrum of color among mammals. Dog and cats for example have two and cows only one. As if being a cow wasn't punishment enough. Croats on the other hand have five. Which, strangely enough, gives them the exact same visual color rang as pigeons. How an animal who sees dramatically more definition than anything we are able to perceive still regularly proves it's self completely unable to navigate its way past flying face first into a window is beyond me. At any rate, this visual ability makes hiding from a Croat somewhat difficult. What your eyes perceive as seamless camouflage may very well be the equivalent of a clown attempting to blend into a rather plain bush to the Croat. Their hearing on the other hand, well that's slightly more limited. Humans usually hear within the 20Hz to 20,000Hz range, but Croats are typically limited to the 95Hz to 20,000Hz range, meaning they have trouble perceiving low tones. In fact, even some of the deeper human voices are beyond their range. Because of this the Croat are forced to live life facing the truly tragic reality that they will never be able to drop the motherfucking bass. Had Skrillex survived the merge, he would have no doubt been quite sympathetically heartbroken. Because of this discrepancy in tone Croat language typically contains a fair amount of high pitched whistles, clicks, and hand gestures as well as what humans would typically consider traditional words. Although to what degree varies greatly from dialect to dialect. The Croat are nomadic and tribal by nature, with each tribe traditionally having their own unique dialect in addition to five relatively universal trade languages that are traditionally only used when two or more tribes come together, or to speak with any rouge outsiders. Everything else is just about as close to human as a thing can be.

Next are the Shor, lumbering creatures that look something like a mix between an elephant and a jellyfish. With nothing resembling a head, thick ropey tentacles dangling from the underside of its massive belly, and an extra set of legs. That's legs of the elephant verity, which would bring the number of legs to six. Jellyfish don't have any legs at all. Your old enough to read, so you should really be only enough to know this sort of thing by now. The Shor are truly massive. Larger by far than any currently living creature on Earth. Their size is instead akin to some of the larger dinosaur species that once roamed the planet. Shor are also colored to the point of garish flamboyance. They are a kaleidoscope of bright and clashing colors that would be much more at home splattered across an acid friendly artist's commune, rather than a living creature wondering about in nature. But I suppose when you're that big there's little point in trying to hide. Each creature carries a unique color pattern across their skin, from the simple to the complex. Organized and symmetrical, nonsensical chaos, and everything in between. Though a little overwhelming to stare at, especially given the Shor's heard mentality it, at the very least, makes identifying one individual from the next a painfully simple process. In a cultural choice that will never cease to baffle humans as a whole, the more nauseating, gaudy, and asymmetrical the pattern, the more attractive the individual is considered to be. Also, how they manage to "see" the colors without anything resembling a head is a bit of a befuddlement as well. The whole thing is truly perplexing to witness. But despite the Shor's terrible taste they are remarkably intelligent, and are generally considered to be, at a minimum, as intelligent as either the Humans or the Croat. Many believe that the Shor are a good deal more so. It's tricky to tell for sure however. Communication between our species has proven to be a problem. The Shor are lacking in both vocal cords or any other organs that might allow them to communicate through sound. Instead the Shor communicate via something a casual observer might call telepathy. They would be wrong of course, such a thing would be more than a little bit silly, but at least they were willing to hazard a guess I suppose. In actuality Shor speak to one another through different chemicals that they are able to produce and exchange via skin on skin contact. When another creature absorbs these chemicals they are able to effectively feel the emotions and for lack of a better term, hear the thoughts that the Shor in question is trying to convey. Though terrifically effective within its own species, communicating with us presents the Shor with a somewhat embarrassing problem. Namely, any conversation they attempt to initiate is utterly one sided. Because we cannot produce the chemicals need to speak to them the creatures simply have no way of understanding us. In fact they seem to be completely oblivious to our every attempt to communicate in return. This misunderstanding has lead the Shor to consider us exceptionally unintelligent and beast like. At this point any communication Shor offer to humans who hang about, trying in vain to bridge the gap, is something akin to the way we might speak to a particularly dumb, but well loved pet. The whole debacle is a bit of a sore point as far as mankind is concerned.

The Roegar and Nax'shen are two aquatic natives of Dakrin so similar that they are often mistaken for the same species. It's a comparison that both indignantly deny. Both races are highly intelligent, though a fair amount less so than the other sentient races. While far brighter than any animal, there will never be a Roegarian mathematician or Nax'shen philosopher. No their level of intellect would be far better suited for a career in gas station attending or politics. Something light on contemplation and logical thinking. Not that either race really needs to worry about things like finding work, they are after all, self aware fish living through the apocalypse. The Roegar lived exclusively in salt water and seemed to spend the majority of their time floating listlessly just below the surface of the water, their quick downward facing eyes scanning restlessly for prey swimming below them. The Roegar in particular resembled obese manta rays. They are, on average, about seven feet from head to tail with a distinctively flat and diamond shaped body. Roegar also have spectacularly long lives, easily living to be upwards of five hundred years. It is, sadly enough a trait that the Nax'shen do not seem to share, although they do have their own advantages. Unlike the Roegar the Nax'shen are able to live in both fresh and salt water, but much prefer fresh. They look very similar to their saltier counterparts, same manta ray body, though in miniature. Nax'shen are typically only four feet full grown and are lacking much of their cousin's girth. They are also infinitely more energetic, spending as much of their days as possible running about like a three year old on a sugar rush. Both the Roegar and Nax'shen also happen to be hermaphroditic, but that's not really any of our business and you should honestly be a little embarrassed that you thought it appropriate to pry. Both are also capable of a rudimentary version of human and Croat languages as long as all parties involve use simple words, though it's exceptionally rare for conversations to crop up. Humans, in all honesty know very little beyond that about either of them. The main reason being the difference in our environment. We simply just don't see much of each other, and have never been particularly hard pressed to seek one another out. The Roegar and Nax'shen have also fallen on hard times since the merge. Both species seem to be dying out, due in no small part to the increase in radiation levels that seem to permeate so many previously wholesome bodies of water.

Then there were the Phrort. This difficult to pronounce species was, first and foremost smart. More intelligent than humanity by leaps and bounds. Not that this particular fact inhibited humans from doing what they do best, namely mocking them mercilessly for their objectively strange appearance. The species was more than old, it was primordial. Dating back almost to the very beginning of Dakrin. The relevancy of this being that, well to put it gently, the Phrort were built during evolutions more experimental phase. Have you ever seen dinosaurs? Of course not, they all died long before the ancestors of man were so much as a mutated sperm hitting just the right egg. But certainly you've seen their fossilized remains? If you are even slightly familiar with the creatures you no doubt know that, while some were certainly fearsome monsters, most were decidedly silly. Yes for every creature with the quiet nobility of the Amphicoelias Fragillimus, the lumbering refinement of the Stegosaurus, or the pants soiling terror of the Giganotosaurus there were dozens of unfortunately goofy looking bastards wandering the wilderness in shame. Sadly enough the Phrort, for all of their intellect, were burdened with an unfortunately preposterous appearance. If only they had known at the time that one day, in an impossibly distant future a comparatively young and stupid alien race would make fun of them. Perhaps then they could have done things differently. But alas, it was not meant to be. The Phrort looked a little like a large praying mantis covered in a thick, shaggy layer of silverish-gray hair. Like a mantis their arms were decidedly scythe like, though covered in the same thick fur that encased the rest of their body. Save of course for the sharp, blade like, bone ridge on the uppermost section of its strange forearm. They also had the same, voluptuous backside and four back legs one might find on a mantis. Although, unlike the insect, the Phrort's legs looked like something that might be more at home on a Yeti. Thick, stalky, tree trunk legs ending in huge, hand like feet with prehensile toes. Their unusual arms, though terribly useful for fighting, were shit at any sort of delicate handling. So the Phrort had taken to rearing up and hooking their arms onto any ear by surface so that they might balance on their back most set of legs, allowing the forelegs the freedom to work on tasks that required finesse. While functional it is not, the most flattering of positions. Their heads are also distinctly unmantis like. While the insect has a triangle shaped head, Phrort's are shaped more like a thumb. Long and rounded at the top, like an upside down U. The look is finished of with two round, black, bowling ball eyes and a mouth that looks a little like a sideways D with the curve pointing up, filled with a set of fat, square teeth.

Then of course there were the new life forms that had been created by the merge itself, all twisted in one form or another. Understand though, these were not a species, these were mutants. Wretched things to be pitied at best and feared at worst. Those among them who carried any remaining intelligent sentience were the saddest by far. To remember what you used to be, to understand the wretch you have become. Creatures wrapped up in not just the flesh, but the mind of another. Or worse yet, several others. It is agony, it is madness, and to those unlucky enough to be afflicted, it is wholly inescapable. Each mutant child of the merge is unique, and every one is tragedy. But those with intelligent minds? Those calamitous creatures forced to understand? There are no words for their torment. But do not pity them to deeply my dear, it is their woe that makes them dangerous. Their mutation that corrupts them into something perilously unpredictable, and unquestionably deadly.

The hostility between humans and the races of Dakrin, not to mention the mutants, was quick to bloom and breathtakingly intense. Life had become too precious, everyone's numbers too dwindled, and society too crumbled for a proper war of course. But the fighting was no less devastating. A more than health fear of the unknown, useless rage for a ruined world, suspicious, and unfounded blame proved for many to be a potent cocktail indeed. Man after all, still struggles to keep itself from harming other members of its own race based solely on the color of their skin. To throw a handful of alien species into the mix and... Well let's just say that there is a reason we have never been voluntarily visited by advanced creatures from a different planet. Humans are effectively the equivalent of those remote islands with native populations who shoot arrows at anthropologists until they finally give up and stop trying to visit.

But as I said in the beginning, at the heart of it all, there was an idea. All at once the multiverse theory had shifted, from an entertaining though exercise, to one of the only things worth thinking about. Every soul pondering the little idea now, whether to understand, blame, or in a futile attempt to fix something that could never be what it once was. The multiverse theory was certainly in vogue like it had never been before. The idea, for it's part was surprisingly neutral about the entire situation. And to be completely honest, had no hard opinion one way or the other on the matter. Although it certainly noticed the merge, as well as the upswing in popularity. It though it a bit vain to change anything about its life now, so instead it simply continued on in much the same way that it always had. For the most part simply happy not to have been forgotten. The idea after all, had learned to roll with the punches after it's extended stay in Hollywood.


	2. Write Your Fanfiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild main character appears

Chapter Two

 

Write Your Fanfiction

 

Lilith is not a good person. She is the monster that other monsters check for under their beds and behind their closet doors. She is the product of a wretched, crippled planet. A dark success story. The vicious, victorious child of an apocalypse. Lest you carry with you any illusions, this will not be the story of a misunderstood soul. In need of just the right person to show them the light with unlikely friendships and good intentions. This is not a romance. There will be no teens melodramatically pining after one another, no love triangles, and no happy endings. And this is no epic fairytale filled with reluctant heroes, grand quests, and impossible obstacles to be overcome. This is the story of a broken little girl, forced to inherit the buckling remains of a broken little world, and the demon she would choose to become. This is a story about a villain in a world without heroes.

Every monster, every real and true beast, is also something more and terribly human. Each horror that walks the earth rather than striding through imagination, was once an innocent. Was at one time, a victim in their own right. We were never built with purity in mind. And despite what we like to believe, humans are too complex to be either completely evil or truly good. We are, by our nature, drawn to various shades of gray. Pull without reproach into the middle ground. This fact, regardless of its validity is a difficult thing for us to face. And all because of those pesky emotions we're so very burdened with. Terrible little things aren't they? The truth of the matter is, no pun intended, that there are many facts that are best forgotten. Many truths best left unremembered or ignored. Because despite what we were lead to believe by those damned, well intentioned counselors, unfiltered honesty is a dangerous thing indeed. Darkness is a hard thing to hate when you find out it has a heart to break. A faceless and most malevolent evil is an easy thing to despise. But a struggling soul who made the wrong choices in a bad situation? Someone hopelessly forced to decide when there is no just option? A person with rational justifications for their every vile action? Objectively we may understand that the reasons behind cruelty do not make the action any less cruel. But emotionally? Not so much. In the face of tragedy, our emotions seem able to magically transform the most venomous of sinners into the fluffiness of bunnies. But at the end of the day, a monster is still a monster regardless of their complexities. A demon is no less dangerous when it's motivations are understood. And no amount of backstory can excuse the atrocities of the present.

And so I say this now in no uncertain terms, in an effort to circumnavigate any shocked gasps or inappropriate if understandable romanticism. Lilith is not a good person. And choosing to love her is a perilous thing indeed. That being said, feel free to ignore me to your heart's content. As I'm sure you no doubt will. Emotions are, after all, a difficult thing to ignore. Should that even be your intention to begin with, which I somehow doubt. At the end of the day, this story does not belong to me. I am, after all, only the narrator. Your friendly, neighborhood semi omnipotent voice in the sky. With a somewhat dry, if personally pleasing sense of humor, an admittedly expanded sense of self importance, and a nasty habit of trying to lovingly fuck the English language for five paragraphs in lieu of getting to the god damned point. Or so I've been told. No, this story belongs to you. It is yours to enjoy and interpret. To love or denounce. This story is yours, so do with it what you will, experience it however you'd like. And, should you be so inclined, write as much strange fan fiction as your odd, perverted little heart can manage. You will not be judged. Not by me at any rate. Others will still judge you of course, but they're not important. This story is yours. Well, yours and hers. But I'm quite sure that Lilith would no doubt encourage you to love her if given the opportunity. It makes things much easier.

Lilith is small, just a hair above five foot, with a serpentine frame to match her less than substantial stature. This coupled with soft, rounded features has resulted in a woman perpetually mistaken for a child. As I'm sure you can imagine, physical strength is not her greatest attribute. Nor is speed, flexibility, or any sort of general gracefulness. She is neither particularly beautiful nor outstandingly ugly, instead siting somewhere in between. Squarely on the average side of the scale. Which, I imagine would be somewhere near the middle if I had to guess. Her olive colored skin is not especially striking, and her thick, straight, black hair, when not tied into a tight braid, is often tangled and unmanageable. Her most compelling feature, two large, deceptively innocent looking gray eyes, are hung just below thick, and ever so slightly overwhelming eyebrows. When all of this is combined with Lilith's surprisingly childlike essence we are left with a person ill suited for the art of seduction. At least not in the traditional sense. In fact, if a person were to runs through the list, they would find Lilith lacking in nearly all of the skills so many have found necessary to surviving the new world order. Instead, she excels in a very specific skill set. Lilith is intelligent, unbearably shrewd, calculating, manipulative, and above all, unscrupulously willing to do whatever is necessary to reach the end goal. Totally unbound by the chains of morality, Lilith believes in the end justifying the means above all else. At least, that's what she would become. But our story doesn't start there does it? This is an origin story after all, and those do tend to begin with the beginning.

On the day of the merge Lilith was seven years, two months, and twelve days old, and things were going pretty good. The man she lovingly called daddy had woven her hair into an intricate braid and spent a good hour smilingly reminding her how cute he thought she was over breakfast. Papa, her other father had come downstairs halfway through the mock lecture, clean and fresh and ready for work. Just like always. He had softly tugged at her braid as he walked in rolling his eyes with a sly smile. Papa plucked a thick slice of bacon off her plate as he walked by, chuckling at her indignant huff, and placing a gentle kiss on the top of his husband's head as he made his way to the coffee maker in the kitchen. "Hey there Daddy."

"Good morning Papa." Daddy replied, not bothering to look up from his plate as he reached out to take the warm mug he knew the other man would offer him.

"You'll spoil her beyond repair if you keep that up you know." Papa quipped.

But daddy only shrugged, "she deserves to know how pretty she is."

Papa settled into the chair next to Lilith laughing happily, "what do you think squirt? Know you're a pretty princess yet?"

Lilith rolled her eyes at the both of them in place of a proper response. At the tender age of seven she was just beginning to learn what would, in her teenage years become as natural as breathing. Namely, finding her parents innocuous behavior utterly embarrassing. "How could I not?" She answered, smiling at her fathers and unintentionally taking any of the bite out of her statement.

Years later and long after the merge, she would realize with no small amount of heartbreak, that she couldn't remember either of their given names. She was sure she'd heard them before. Knew that she had, on some vague level, known their first names. But time and ignorance had stolen them from Lilith, hiding them away in a place she could not find. To the child that Lilith had been, they had always just been Daddy and Papa. Her fathers, shining, good, and never quite human in that way that only a parent can manage. It's what she had called them since she could talk, what they had called each other, and in the little bubble of existence that encompassed the life of a seven year old, their entire identity. Later she would pine after the rest of them. Yearning to have known the men her fathers were with the same intense want she felt when she missing the parents she had understood. But as for the here and now, she was content. Happy in her limited world view, and unaware that anything could be missing.

"Looking forward to school today squirt?" Papa asked after taking a moment to settle properly into his chair.

"No!" Lilith answered, wrinkling her nose.

"Still having trouble with that kid that sits behind you then? What's his name?"

"Joel." Daddy grumbled helpfully. Despite his nearly neurotic need to supply his family with a warm, homemade breakfast, and prepare a lunch before their departure every weekday, Daddy hated mornings.

"He keeps pulling on my braid every time the teacher isn't looking!" Lilith grumbled, her voiced a picture of childish indignation.

"Why don't you tell the teacher?" Daddy asked, "want us to do it?"

Lilith scoffed and waved her hand dismissively, talking around a new bite of toast and raspberry jam, "I'm not a snitch Daddy. You don't go to grown ups with stuff like this. You're supposed to fix you're own problems."

"You came to us about it squirt." Papa cut in with an indulgent smile.

"You don't count! I meant real grown ups, not you two."

"Ah so, the truth comes out! You hear that Daddy? We aren't real grown ups." Papa laughter, throwing an arm around the back of his husband's chair and dragging it closer so that he could lay his head across the other man's shoulder. "What do ya say we play hokey then? Could be fun..."

"Eww!" Lilith all but screamed despite the indulgent smile on her face, "don't be gross you guys!" Her outburst only succeeded in making both her fathers laugh and scoot closer to one another.

"Joel probably just has a crush on you dear." Daddy eventually replied, doing his very best to ignore the flirty looks Papa kept sending his way.

"I wish he didn't!" Lilith groaned, "I don't even like boys!"

"Girls then?" Papa asked casually, not bothering to looking away from Daddy as he reached across the table to snag his heartbreakingly overlooked mug of hot, black coffee.

"Nah, not them either." Lilith answered quickly.

"So tell me, oh child of mine, who do you like?"

Lilith considered the question for a handful of seconds, gulping down a couple of mouthfuls of orange juice. "Dolphins mostly." She eventually answered casually.

That got her parent's attention. The men stared at their daughter as she absentmindedly poked at her eggs with a fork for before turning towards each other with equally nervous expressions. "Well, Lilith honey. That's..." Daddy mumbled haltingly, not really sure how to continue.

Lilith looked back towards them, startled by the awkward tone. "Eww, no! Not like, to kiss! That's gross, you're gross! I just think they're cool! They rescue people from drowning like all the time." She said, rolling her eyes in frustration and embarrassment.

"Oh thank god!" Daddy smiled. "Cause I have no idea how that conversation was going to go!"

Papa, for his part burst into peels of relived laughter, muttering, "oh god! I thought... Dolphins, oh my god!" I between gasps. "Well," he chuckled once he had regained control of himself, "on that note, I've gatta get to work. You bumming a ride squirt? Or would you rather take the bus?"

"Bus." Lilith decided right away, "If I go with you you'll just make fun of me."

"You know him too well sweetheart." Daddy smiled, gathering the dirty dishes and tossing them into the sink.

The rest of the day had proven to be much better than initially anticipated for the little girl. Half way through second period the teacher, Miss Brisen who was, at the time, considering getting a fourth cat to offset the loneliness that accompanied forty three years lived without a single serious romantic relationship, had turned away from the white broad at exactly the right time. Catching Joel midway through a particularly vicious tug on the end of Lilith's braid. After a quick second in which Miss Brisen decided that yes, she would stop by the animal shelter after work, and assuming she found just the right feline, would name the newest member of her household Grand Earl Sazzlebottem the third, sprung into action. Lilith was ecstatic as Miss Brisen all but hauled Joel out of his seat, yelling at him about visits to the principal's office and phone calls to parents. Lilith had even managed to blink out some fat crocodile tears the next time the teacher turned to her, which of course earned Joel another fiery lecture on the dangers of bullying. Miss Brisen made Joel stand next to the door after that to wait for the hall monitor to come by and walk him to the principal's office. After she turned back to the board Lilith stopped crying, turned to Joel and stuck out her tongue. The dark look of annoyance he had sent her way was without a doubt the highlight of her entire week. He would be angry about it sure, but what could he do? She'd stuck to playground rules, never tattled. It was his own fault he was busted, and there was a whole classroom to back her up. Lilith had won fair and square. And she had every intention of savoring the victory.

Papa had once said about Lilith that she was, "just a little bit vindictive when she wants to be. Which of course she usually does."

Daddy had later amended the statement, saying that she just knew what she wanted, knew how to get it, and didn't suffer love for anyone who got in her way. "It isn't that she's vindictive," he'd said, "it's just that, she's going to be very good at taking care of herself."

Over the years Lilith had decided that Papa had, more than likely, been a little closer to correct. There were plenty of others that certainly wouldn't have argued with the word vindictive. Maybe not anywhere she could have heard it, maybe not even out loud, but the agreement would have been there none the less. Still perhaps, if the world hadn't changed, Daddy would have ended up the accurate one. If she had been lucky enough to grow up the way she was meant to. It's impossible to tell for sure of course, could bes are absurdly difficult things to attempt to predict. Besides, who's to say what was really meant to happen. Fate is a tricky thing. Could it really have been foiled by something as simple as the dissolving of two universes and the birth of another? Maybe it could, who knows. Or maybe this was the plan all along, maybe this was what was destined from the very beginning of the very beginning. But then, the simplest answer to this little conundrum is, of course, there is no such thing as fate at all. No predetermined causality written out before the beginning of time by forces unknown. Just the continuous, unbroken flow of random happenstance. But where's the fun in that? Still, it's a wonderful thought to have in the dark, sleepless hours between one day and the next. The idea, the hope that she could have been something else. That the world could have been something else. That there could have been a chance for Lilith to grow up into the woman that Daddy had seen inside her.

Other than that, the school day turned out pleasantly uneventful. The usual dodge ball and hopscotch at recess, pb&j, a tiny carton of milk, and a side of cherry jello at lunch. The droning on of teaches about subjects that ran the gambit of mildly interesting to phenomenally dull and forgettable, filling up the bits in between. Not a bad day at all. Not exactly a grand day, even by seven year old standards, but certainly not bad. So too was the bus ride home equally unremarkable. With the exception of the heated glares Joel and his friends leveled in her general direction from the other side of the bus. But, because of Lilith's natural inclination for, let's call it retaliatory vindication, he only succeeded in making the ride home that much more pleasant for the little girl. Yes, today was, all things considered going pretty well.

Daddy was as always, waiting at home with after school snacks and a lecture about the importance of homework before TV. And Lilith, as always tried her very best to pay attention, though that proved to be as impossible a task as it ever was. Lilith had an attention span typical for a child of seven, that is to say, roughly the same as a highly distractible moth at a neon sign emporium. The situation was only further exasperated by both the barstool she sat on which just so happened to spin, and Daddy's insistence on repeating, word for word, the exact same lecture he had administered nearly every day since her life at school began. It was a recipe for disaster really, and honestly, Daddy should have known better at this point in their relationship. But that is the thing about parents and their children isn't it? As toddlers, children tend to train their guardians to adopt the type of behaviors they will no doubt find infuriating as a young adult. Chief among them being the tendency to repeat the same lesson in the same way regardless of its effectiveness or whether it's being listened to at all really. You see, as paternal life goes on, adults become accustomed to being ignored. When one has a child it is as natural a part of daily life as eating or sleeping. And, particularly amongst the very young and those hellish, terrifying creatures known only as the sullen teenager, the best if not only way to break through the haze of parental indifference that seems to surround them, is to just sort of eternally repeat yourself in the hopes that one day one in the distant future perhaps, you will discover the correct frequency that gets through to them. It is an inalienable truth. Child teaches parent that the only way to be heard is to keep talking, saying the same thing again and again, parent complies fully aware of how annoying they are but unable to think of a better option, child becomes angry with parent, child promises themselves they will never behave that way when they become an adult, child grows into parent, is taught by new child to repeat themselves despite the promise, and sadly realizes they have become their own parents. And thus the circle of life is complete and Daddy stands, continuing undaunted with his lecture despite Lilith's attention being poured in its entirety, into twirling her seat as quickly as possible on the other side of the kitchen counter.

Lilith's Papa had once played a particularly memorable trick on her involving those bar stools. Back when she was young, naive, and far more gullible, at the tender age of six a and a half. She had not yet acquired the worldly wisdom that her current seven years of life granted her. It had started early one Saturday morning. Lilith had made the trek downstairs almost as soon as the sun had risen with one, singular goal in mind. Namely, to spin until she was sick. The barstools were new then, just purchased the day before, and yet to be properly christened. Her Daddy had made her promise she would take it easy on the twirling before setting them up on the outer edge of the kitchen counter. Her only reply had been a look that wordlessly screamed, "please don't insult the both of us by demanding I lie, because I think we both know what's going to happen here." Daddy had wisely let the subject drop, realizing it's pursuit would be a fools errand.

Lilith paid little mind to her Papa who, much to his husband's chagrin, was both an early riser and a member of that vile cult hidden among the normal human population. Ghastly creatures known only as the morning people. He had already contently settled into his favorite chair at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the Saturday paper. He likewise ignored her and her oncoming shenanigans in favor of an amusing article about a literary agent who was recently found wandering New York claiming to be a vampire. Theirs had always been an easy silence. By which I mean the father and daughter, rather than father and supposedly vampiric agent. Theirs would no doubt be a much more strained an uncomfortable silence had they been allowed alone in a room with each other. Which they were not.

Lilith climbed into the nearest tall chair with the sort of calm excitement that comes with finally executing a plan you have been working on for what feels like an eternity. And thus did an epic bout of nausea inducing twirling begin. Lilith held on tho the base of the chair in a white knuckle grip, fighting against centrifugal force to stay firmly placed on her chosen perch. At the same time using the foot closest to the counter to kick off on each rotation, steadily increasing her speed. She allowed her self an indulgent, hazy smile as the world began to shift and blur around her, then giggled happily as a heady rush of dizziness filled her. It was perfect, everything she had hoped it would be, pure bliss in the eyes of a six year old. And then of course she stopped spinning, and reality crashed down around her ears. She wasn't simply dizzy, no this was something so far beyond that. Something more and far more insidious. Lilith fell out of the chair with a resounding thud and spent the next minute or so trying very hard not to throw up on the kitchen floor, which was currently wobbling lazily below her, whole lay unconcerned with the prospect of holding still any time soon. "Oh god, this was hell." She though sadly with an in no way over dramatic groan. "I have spun myself into hell. Why do all the fun things have to have such terrible consequences? Why is god so cruel?" This was a question asked by everyone at some point in their lives. Be it in regards to drugs, drink, sex, or childish bouts of spinning. The fun parts of life always have the biggest burdens of regret. And, should there indeed be a god, it would undoubtably be both cruel and capricious for so unkind a design.

"You know," Papa began without looking up from his paper, "I know a sure fire way to fix that." The sudden statement startled the little girl, in part because in her agony she had completely forgotten her father was in the room, but also because surly such awesome wisdom could not be handed out so casually. The prospect of unlimited spinning without any unpleasant hangover? Such a thing would no doubt shatter any self respecting six year old's entire world view in the most wonderful of ways. And there sat her Papa, nonchalantly offering up the no doubt magical secret with the same tone he might use to discus a particularly uneventful day in the stock market, or some other equally boring and incomprehensibly adult conversation.

"How?" Lilith breathed reverently, as if uttering a sacred prayer.

"It's easy," her papa began, a sparkle of amusement lighting up behind his eyes, "all you have to do is this, as soon as you're done spinning, start again, only in the opposite direction."

"Of course!" Lilith though elated, it was all so clear to her. The answer had been so simple, so very simple.

"Now," the man at the table continued, straining to keep the mischievous smile threatening his lips hidden, lest it ruin the illusion, "here's the important part. So listen close." Papa paused a second for dramatic affect before continuing on. "The trick is, you have to spin at the exact same speed and for the exact same amount of turns, or it won't work. The two spins have to cancel each other out you see? If it's not even it will only make the dizziness worse. Got that Squirt?"

Lilith nodded in mute awe before launching herself into her father's arms and peppering his face with childish kisses. "Thank you Papa!" She muttered repeatedly in between the giddy shows of affection.

"Yeah, yeah." The man laughed in a transparently mock show of exasperation. "Get to it then."

The ruse lasted the better part of a week and a half, much to Lilith's later embarrassment. But in her defense, her Papa had handled the maintenance of his trick with the skill of a true master. Every doubt was handled with care that, from Lilith's perspective at least, perfectly mimicked casual observation. "Oh no honey," he's say, "you were spinning a little faster on your first try." Or, "come on Squirt, you spun around two extra rotations! It won't work if it's not exactly the same."

The game did eventually end though, as all games must. A particularly trying bout of failures attracted Daddy's attention one night. And although he never out and out forbade activities from continued, he did use his particular brand of cleverness to put a decisive end to things. Daddy had known his husband for a very long time after all. Tell the man to do something and he would, more than likely steadfastly do the opposite, simply for the principle of the thing. It was a habit that, to his perpetual annoyance, their daughter had likewise inherited. But, on the other hand, if you were to push just the right buttons, well you'll get what you want one way or the other. So, after discovering the trick his husband had played on their daughter, Daddy chose to, very casually mention that, should Lilith get sick while spinning and throw up all over the kitchen, it would be Papa's responsibility to clean the sordid mess. And that was, quite promptly, the end of that. Papa revealed his lie to Lilith as tactfully as he could, and much to the relief of everyone in the house, her seemingly endless dedication to the spinning finally tapered off, eventually fading into a casual interest.

After homework came blessed cartoons and an eventful if brief romp outside. Lilith gleefully climbed trees and crawled army style, through randomly placed backyard brush. As seven year olds a re often want to do. This however ended only an hour or two after beginning with Papa's return from work. Next came dinner, backed macaroni and cheese with a distasteful large side of steamed broccoli and carrots. The family enjoyed the meal with an amount of calm pleasantries truly unusual for them. Typically the evening meal was a much more hectic, dare I say, chaotic affair. Likely debates, unrepentant jibes in one another's general direction, and unfulfilled threats of a food fight. But. this night was one of peace. Each member of the family calmed into contented lulls in conversation and pleasant introspection. At seven pm Lilith settled herself into the plush leather couch that took up the vast majority of the living room, and excitedly turned the TV to the Discovery channel. Tonight was the premiere of a new documentary on dolphins that she had been looking forward to for months. Quite the event for those into such things, which, of course, Lilith was. Her fathers, both deeply content with their current knowledge on aquatic mammals as a whole, opted out of the show. Instead wondering off to their office, with the intention of doing, whatever it is adults do with ample free time and unfettered access to the internet. No, not that. Probably not that. It was far more likely something to do with social media sites and humorous web comics. Get your minds out of the gutter. The documentary began, as many documentaries do, with a suitably distinguished, British man. Carefully narrating beautiful stock footage. The first few minutes made it clear that this would be everything Lilith had hoped it would. Unfortunately she would never see the end, or even the middle. Because by the time the first commercial break was scheduled to end, the world was already over.

It began for Lilith like an earthquake. The ground below her took to vibrating and rolling in uneven, looping patterns. Quickly growing in intensity until she was sure the house would fall down around her. It was a odd thing to say the least, earth quakes were far from common Lebanon Kansas. Storms being the city's preferred flavor of natural disaster. But still, not quite a harbinger for the end times. Alarming, but certainly not unnatural. Lilith heard her fathers shouting her name from their shared upstairs study, and the tell tale thud of heavy foot falls, hinting at the men's quick scrambled to make their way down. Fate however, was against them. They would never make it to her, never see their daughter again. And she would never know if they lived. As far as goodbyes go, it was absolutely dismal. But such is life.

Before her fathers could so much as reach the top of the stairs, the shaking ground was joined by a series of seemingly sourceless concussive, hallow booms easily loud enough to deafen. And as if that were the stage cue the planet had been waiting for, suddenly everything changed. Shifting from the strange but explainable, to something else, unimaginably unnatural. It was as if the building blocks of life themselves were all at once diseased. Like reality had begun to fracture in the center. A spider web of cracks racing outward in every direction. Painting existence in broken fractals and jagged, uneven gaps. Everything around her seemed to be crumbling, even as it stayed exactly the same. The shift wasn't a physical one. Well, not initially at least. No, it started as something more ethereal. An ugly feeling bubbling below the surface. An experience made of aether. Incorporeal, but no less powerful for its lack of substance. The air around her seemed to shimmer and pulse with an odd sort of pressure, like the echoes of a heartbeat. With each flowing wave the world changed , twisting the the physical as much as it had already mutated the intangible. The living room walls first warped, then shattered in uneven patches. Bursting to splinters, and revealing gaping cracks that leaked out clear views of the world outside. And god, what horrors existed outside those walls. Lilith's little neighborhood was torn to bloody ribbons around her. The safe haven of familiar suburbia that had before, always seemed so steady, had descended into chaos so complete it bordered on the absurd. Houses ripped from the ground by their roots only to hover through the air with all the poetic calm of an astronaut in zero G. Snapped wires and leaking plumbing dangling from their undercarriage almost wistfully. Trees melted like birthday candles, dripping into wet, bubbling puddles near the side walk. Shrubbery froze, solid in seconds, only to explode into glittering crystals like hedge themed firecrackers seconds later. One very confused but all things considered calm, neighborhood dog who's name had been Pete strut through the scene completely unaffected. Dragging an ugly blue leash behind him. The gorish, bloody stump of an adult male's right hand unevenly severed at the wrist, still clinging stubbornly to the handle. But for an instant and despite the chaos, there was a strange sort of calm. Everything around her bathed in beautiful, thrashing, primordial destruction. But for Lilith in that moment, curled atop the fat cushions of an overstuffed couch, there was only peace. Like the eye of a terrible storm. It didn't last long, how could it? Shorter than the span of a single breath. And then, quite out of the blue, a chasm opened underneath the little girl, and she found herself falling. Tumbling down the rabbit hole, furniture and all.

Blackness and starlight blurred past her as she fell. The planet seemed to rush away in every direction. So, with very few options available to her, Lilith tumbled down. But, after an uncountable amount of time, in which nothing at all seemed to change she couldn't help but wonder. Was she really still falling? It was hard to tell, things around her seem to be repeating, the same images scrolling past again and again like the background of an old Warner bother's cartoon. She may very well have been holding still as existence rushes around her. How would she know? Lilith still had that rolling, pulling sensation in her stomach and a cold tingling in her feet that indicate she was in the greedy embrace of gravity's biggest down side. But that might well have been in her head, her body dutifully supplying sensation to match her minds imagination of current events. There was no wind here, wherever here was. If she were really still falling from some impossible hight, it would most likely be windy wouldn't it? It always seems windy in the movies. But then, maybe there wasn't wind to be had in the bottomless inky pit that apparently lived under her living room. There was no certainty one way or the other it seemed, no sure way to tell until she either reached the ground. Or didn't. Lilith found the lack of certainty understandably maddening.

Slowly though, things became clearer. The scrolling background became easier to make out, shifting from star streaked darkness to bleeding colors, to blurred shapes, and so on and so forth. She still couldn't quite fit the puzzle piece hints of her location together, but she was close. The image was there now, just beyond her grasp, filled with the tantalizing possibility of knowing. Sadly, before she could make it out, the singing started. Everything else instantly paled and fell away. Shed from perception like the discarded petals of a fading rose. Lilith was left with no course of action but to listen. And listen she did. The song was like nothing she had ever heard before, filled with more beauty than the child had ever though possible. A symphony of muted words, impossible language dancing between its delicate notes. Lilith saw galaxies and nebulas in the music, the shuddering chasms of black holes, planets made of diamond glittering in the light of a foreign suns, and impossible moons made of green and purple fire. She heard the footfalls of ants crawling through the dust, trees pushing through soil, and the strong gasp of an infant's first breath. She saw her beginning and she saw her end. This was the song of creation, of everything that ever would and wouldn't be. Of life and death and eternity. Awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. All consuming in its grace. Lilith cried for its majesty, her body shaking in unnoticed wracking sobs. It was too much, a thing so grand, so utterly dreadful in its wonder, that it seemed to fill her, burn her out from the center of her being. And yet still she listened. It's magnificence would kill her, kill them all, and they would go willingly. Lambs to the slaughter, happy even as they're fed through the gnashing gears of macabre machinery. Begging for more to their last breath. Lilith listened as the song grew, hot and bright in her mind's eye. Reaching for its impossible crescendo. She listened as it changed, slowly at first but growing in its mutation. The new song was twisted and injured, but no less breathtaking. She listened until the very end, until the notes had once again quieted, until she could no longer understand. The song would never stop, not until the true end of everything. But at last and all too soon Lilith was returned to her previous ignorance, once again unable to perceive.

Lilith opened her eyes, realizing for the first time that they had been closed, and found herself staring up at a breathtakingly intricate stain glass window. She was kneeling before the altar of a creaking disused church. Bare knees aching against dusty, well worn wood floors. The wall behind the wooden pedestal in front of which she perched was dominated by a massive floor to ceiling window facing the setting sun. Painted in colored glass to depict a great red rose in full bloom. The heavy blanket of silence that engulfed the little house of worship seemed to amplify every noise she made. The slow, uneven breaths, dull scuffle as she stood up slowly, the creak of the boards under her feet as she shifted her weight. Lilith glanced around hesitantly, deeply confused but loath to break the spell cast by such uneasy silence. The chapel was minuscule, just barely able to hold eight narrow pews, two sets of four with an aisle down the center wide enough for two people to walk down shoulder to shoulder. Ever surface was covered in decades of dust. The building looked as if had been sealed, left to sit undisturbed for the better part of fifty years.

Lilith tried desperately to fill the gap in her memory between the song and her appearance here, but there was nothing. How had she gotten here? With a hiss of realization she spun around, her eyes scanning the floor. Where were they, they had to be... But she couldn't find what she was desperately looking for. She looked again, then again, expecting to see some small clue some little detail she had somehow missed. But there was nothing. The realization nearly brought her back down to her knees. There was nothing. How could there be nothing? No footsteps through the dust. Nothing leading to her current position at the heart of the little chapel. Then how? How had she gotten here? It was as if she had just suddenly appeared here by magic. She needed to find her fathers, Lilith decided with an air of finality. They would know what to do. Would be able to explain away everything that had happened. Would happily hold he tight until she was no longer afraid.

"Daddy? Papa?" She called out meekly. At last breaking the heavy silence. They must be close by. They had to be, her fathers had only been upstairs when everything began. The quiet that answered her was overwhelmingly oppressive. She tried again, louder this time. Suddenly desperate to dispel the quiet she had early maintained. "Daddy? Papa? Please, where are you guys?" But still there was nothing. "Please, please! I need you!" She yelled, her voice becoming louder, her tone growing more frantic.

Outside, they must be outside! Lilith scrambled towards the double doors at the opposite side of the church, flinging them open without hesitation. She took a great gasp, filling her lungs and readying them to call out to her parents as loud as her voice would allow. She would make sure they heard her and came running this time. But the words died on her lips as she took in the scene beyond the doors. Oh god, what was this?

Everywhere Lilith looked, every direction was the same. Nothing left but the still smoking husks of burned out building and blackened debris. Piles upon piles of chard wood and dying coals scattered haphazard across cracked asphalt. Oh god were those bones? Thousands of them poking out of the chaos. Oozing flesh and blackened bone hidden among the rubble, most just barely visible. All of it blanketed beneath a thin layer of grayish snow that still fell steadily from an equally gray sky. It clung to her skin and hair, feather light and hot. Not snow then, ash. Lilith swiped at her face in horror, trying desperately to remove them, but only managing to smear the flakes across her skin in thin, messy stripes. It had been a city once. Something full and loud and alive. But now, now there was only this. A smoking, stinking shell, desecrated and hollow. Only the little chapel remained, wholly untouched in the heart of this smoldering corpse. And only this one living little girl left to stroll through the decay in a city of the dead. There was no rescue here. No fathers left to joke and tease and encourage across the breakfast table. No school left to bemoan, or classmates remaining to be teased. The world had ended. Slowly Lilith fell to her knees and began to cry.


	3. Box Turtle Confetti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter was brought to you by cuil theory.

Chapter 3

Box Turtle Confetti 

 

Milo is a genious. Understand, this is meant to be a statement rather than a compliment. Milo has an exceptionally high IQ. It is a fact, in the same way the sky is, as far as most of us are concerned blue, or that cats have many terrible secrets. Milo is also, and I do mean this in the most affectionate of ways, completely useless. He has little to no motivation to complete any task that might be considered important. Collecting only the most pointless of hobbies and following only the most meaningless of passions. He is, to put it bluntly, irredeemably lazy.

It wasn't always that way. There was a time in Milo's life when his iron clad determination had matched his impressive intellect. He had been a young man full of potential, someone who's future others could be excited about. And then there was college. The change started small enough, as change often does. There were so many distractions, so much freedom. It was so, impossibly easy to lose one's self in activity. New friends, new environments, and for the first time in Milo's life, total separation from the freight train of driving, forceful forward momentum that was his parents. Both high powered, type A individuals. His mother a divorce lawyer, his father a rather high ranking agent tucked somewhere in the inner workings of the FBI. Although, to be perfectly honest, Milo's father was not, nor had he ever, to Milo's knowledge at least, been one of those cool FBI agents, working the field, risking life and limb to track and arrest dangerous criminals. No, his position was instead settled quite squarely in the office working, pencil pushing branch of the United States Government. Of which there are endless facets. But that's neither here nor there now is it? No, the point is, in the face of so much change, and such tantalizing levels of freedom, Milo fell behind. In his first year at the university, he allowed himself to slip. Let a few too many important papers slide, and a handful of vital tests left untaken. He ended the semester with the lowest grades he had ever received since beginning school much to his horror. But, Milo promised both his less than impressed parents and himself, he could, no would, nay must do better, in the future! This was a small set back, a tiny bump in the road. A chance to rise up from the ashes, and prove himself above such a minor and temporary loss of focus.

And then came sex. After a particularly intense fling with an art major in the second half of his second year, a medical doctorate was exchanged for a philosophical degree. Milo had never had sex before Beverly. But Beverly, well, Beverly was skilled. She had lived what Milo saw as an amazingly interesting and intense existence. The heavily tattooed girl with a neon green side mullet and fishnets lived in a world altogether alien. A place filled to bursting with exotic eccentricities and tantalizing pleasures. It was all at once inspiring and frightening. And to be quite frank, Beverly completely overwhelmed the more innocent Milo. Most likely due in no small part to the fog of hormones gliding through his gray matter with all the subtlety of Evgeni Plushenko's sincerely magical performance of Sex Bomb on the ice of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The girl did yoga, could bend in ways one would never expect, and was, throughout their short relationship, at the height of her tantric sex phase. Changes were naturally made to facilitate life with such a goddess. And so the physical, immeasurably precise life of a renowned neurosurgeon was traded in for one more relaxed and abstract, though no less mentally demanding if handled correctly. A life of constant contemplation and questions. In the end, the relationship didn't last, only surviving for the better part of three months. But for whatever reason, the major stuck. It was not a bad choice, Milo decided. A tad fanciful perhaps, but certainly not unreasonable.

And then came Mary Jane, by which I most certainly don't mean the girl. Graciously supplied by a small, close knit group fellow philosophy majors. The first time Milo tasted the heated, bitter tang of THC smoke he was convinced that it was not for him. He was nineteen then, and just beginning to grow into a more experimental phase of life. Facilitated greatly, in the same way that his other course corrections had been, by a separation from his parents and the steady guiding hands of more experienced classmates. Which, if colloquial knowledge and expectation are anything to go by, is a relatively normal turn of events all things considered. The poor boy had nervously taken the initial inhale, supplied via communal blunt, full force. He held the smoke in his lungs for all of ten second before promptly coughing uncontrollably for the better part of ten minutes. He understandably, felt none of the plants intended effects. This had prompted Milo to accept the stance that drugs simply weren't for him. He had boldly embraced the attempt, he reasoned both to himself and others, but had ultimately found the experience lacking. It was a stance he would sternly stick to, refusing any goading on the subject.

It lasted exactly three weeks. At which point he unknowingly ate two pot brownies at a friend's house party that he didn't, in all honesty particularly want to attend. They had certainly tasted strange, but the odd tang was wholly negligible as he ingested the dense dessert. These were college students after all, creatures not well know for any sort of cooking prowess. Strange tastes were to be expected. This time he most certainly felt the effects. After that night Milo's opinion of himself shifted somewhat. With a good deal of careful consideration, he decided that drugs were, quite defiantly, for him. While he steadfastly avoided anything considered a "hard" drug such as opiates, meth, crack, so on and so forth, pot became a new best friend. Which was alright, he reasoned. Because, quite frankly, everything is relatively alright when you're perpetually high. Besides, philosophy, as a general rule, does not require the same amount of sobriety expected in a medical profession. It was therefore fortuitous indeed that he had seen fit to change his major before the discovery of this new and interesting pastime.

And then, dear readers, came hallucinogens. Milo began his journey into the mad world of intentional hallucinations as a means of self discovery. Many great artist, scientists, world leaders, and yes, philosophers have turned to such substances for insight and inspiration. Great minds of all kinds have found world changing breakthroughs and personal revelation in chemically induced trips through the subconscious. Although, to be fair, that's also how countless burn outs have found the unyielding belief in fairies and alien abduction. Don't take the brown acid kids. Still, as far as Milo was concerned, the risks were worth the reward. And so, one night he and a group of equally curious friends gathered in his semi private dorm room, turned on some Aerosmith and took turns inhaling salvia divinorum to such consciousness expanding lyrics as, "pink, it's like red but not quite." In retrospect perhaps Pink Floyd may have been a wiser, if somewhat more pedestrian choice. When it was Milo's turn to take up the mantle, or bong as it were, he was a given a thumb nail portion of the drug, a lighter, and a set over very simple instructions. "Hit it hard and hold it till your vision starts to vibrate. Then just let it go and try not to freak." As far as preparation went, things could have perhaps been a touch less concise. Still, for all that it lacked in detail, it made up for in expectation of action. The path was laid bare before Milo's feet, straight and true. With room on neither side for the fruitless wondering of unsure experimentation. There really was only one choice left, to move forward, or step back. And so, with a final steadying breath, Milo placed the glass rim of the water pipe to his lips and did what he was told.

What you may or may not know, depending heavily on your level of personal experiences, opinions of illicit substances, and availability of of said substances, is there is much more to hallucinogenics than the ever popular acid and magic mushrooms. In actuality, there are many, many unique options available. Hell, even morning glory seeds will get you high if used the right way. Although, I don't recommend trying it. The after effects can be, unpleasant. One of those other options is the already mentioned, salvia divinorum. Salvia is unique in many ways, not least of which is the longevity and intensity of the trips it provides. Salvia is notoriously difficult to keep in ones system, nearly dissipating with the same speed in which it enters, meaning the trips are uniquely short. Often lasting no more than a mere ten minutes. But, when used correctly, the trips are staggeringly intense. Though each trip is unique to the person it exists within and the time in which it is born, there are, as always certain aspects unique to the drug itself. The first is the special way in which it warps time for its users. Despite the relatively short time experienced by the user's body, their mind may very well experience hours, days, even years within the shifting visions of nonreality. The second theme of the diviner's sage, is one of disassociation. Across the board, those that have tasted it's delicate, spicy smoke have reported a distinct loss of identity while lounging in the plant's psychotropic clutches. Some become one with certain nearby objects, be they furniture, plants, or wild life. Others become one with everything, existing as a part of a vast, universal whole. And still others become nothing at all, dissolving away as if they had never existed to begin with. This particular aspect of the drug is by far it's most famous, as well as it's most dangerous feature. Many find this loss of self, unpleasant, leading to an inevitably negative relation and a bad, if not terrifying trip. This is why it is so important to know your limits, know what will likely disturb you before partaking in hallucinogens. As the old adage may or may not say, know thy self lest you find yourself shit scared when reality melts around you in a way you did not expect after inhaling reality shattering smoke. Well, it's something similar to that at least. Isn't it? I'm sorry, I'm a bit terrible at old adages, but I believe that's the gist of it.

Milo held the smoke until the world began to shake slightly around the edges, and then, with a great huff he let everything out of his lungs in a billowing white cloud. He had just enough time to wonder with no small amount of confusion if maybe he hadn't done it right. Because really he didn't feel anything at all. But not so much time that he could give a voice to his concerns. Quite suddenly he found himself boneless and giggling. His body flopped backwards, sprawling him out with all the finesse of a drunken starfish. His back flat against the musty burgundy carpet that had never felt so soft, his limbs heavy and pliant at his sides. He blinked lazily up at the ceiling as it began to melt, dripping down like melted wax, reveling the sky, breathtaking and flawless above. As the ceiling continued to splatter, wet and warm across his skin, so too did Milo's body begin to similarly dissolve. The thin membrane that glued one cell to the next, binding him into the lump of living flesh he had existed within for two decades began to give. Releasing him, cell by cell, to drift apart. He wondered idly at which point he would cease to be himself, which cell would prove to be the tipping point. The microscopic, proverbial straw that would shift him from human to matter. And yet, despite the painless, incremental destruction of his body, he found himself stubbornly continuing to be. It was surprising. "Was Descartes right after all?" He tried to ask the universe. Sadly the words came out as uninterpretable static made of galaxies and star dust. "I'm surprised," he persisted despite the clicking hiss that continued to seep out of his destroyed lips in place of words, "it seemed so unlikely."

"But isn't it all so very unlikely?" A voice replied above him. He tried desperately to search the sky for its origin. This voice must be god. Obviously. It somehow felt appropriate, for him to want to look upon the face of the divine creator. Not that god existed. Such a being would be ridiculous. But alas, his eyes were no more, long separated into their smallest components, and it seemed his consciousness alone could not see. "It's not to be." The voice mused, reading his mind and sounding somehow melancholy with what it found there. As if there could have been any other conclusion within him. Such a silly god this was.

"That's true I suppose." He answered, a reply to both the first and second statement. To his eternal embarrassment, his voice shifting from pleasant white noise to the screeching of a thousand angry monkeys halfway through the short response. "You never answered my question you know." Milo began again, trying his best to recover from the embarrassing slip. Thankfully his voice had lost it's apeish tones and was now the soothing natural hiss of waves breaking across a sandy beach.

"Hmm?" The voice hummed dispationatly. Clearly god was no longer really listening to him. Distracted, Milo supposed, by some matter of great importance. Although, in all honestly it easily could have been an old rerun of the X-Files for all Milo knew. The show was compelling in its own right. He would not have really blamed the silly god one way or the other.

"Never mind. It's not important." Milo sighed. "I was just wondering, about the nature of man, the meaning of life, true reality, that sort of thing. I was hoping you could answer. But then I though, well, there's a good chance you don't exist so..." He let the conclusion drift in the air unsaid so as not to be rude.

"Ahh," the voice answered almost right away. Clearly Milo had once again gained it's interest. Perhaps god's show had had a commercial break then. "I suppose I could tell you. But naturally I won't. Of all the many gifts bestowed upon man, easy answers were never among them. What would be the point?"

"I guess you're right." Milo smiled, or he would have if he still had a mouth. Which of course he did not.

The conversation lulled then. Coming, perhaps to its natural conclusion. Instead of attempting to fill the emptiness with unnecessary noise in the name of quieting silence, Milo wisely chooses to drift. Float on the surface of the slow, rolling waters that encompass his consciousness. Embraced the nothing he had become through bodily destruction, and danced through time. Thoughtless and perfect. Overwhelmed and afraid. The experience as unpleasant as it was enjoyable. It was all the same thing here as far as he could tell, not that he was an expert. The voice of the maybe god did not object and contently faded away from the formless man. The would be philosopher who took no stalk in the soul. And without reason, Milo found himself compelled beyond his control to continue it as long as possible. Not that time existed here mind. In fact, when Milo attempted to dwell on the concept he quickly came to the realization that such a thing must not exist at all. A meaningless word, no doubt the work of the silly maybe god. The creature was clearly capable of such a farce.

And then quite out of the blue, something miraculous happened. Milo blinked his eyes. He had eyes! "No, no of course I have eyes. Why would I think I didn't?" Milo wondered. But really there were more pressing matters to worry about. First and foremost was the issue of the world suddenly transforming from a three dimensional plane to two. This was an unpleasant situation to find one's self in to say the least. Things were too chaotic this way, objects too hard to tell apart. They kept overlapping and blending into one another as they passed by. Milo wished to escape the flat plane of existence almost as soon as he noticed himself trapped in it. The second issue which was no less pressing a predicament that the first was that, he was, as far as Milo could make out, sitting on the ocean floor. His fist though, after realizing where he was seemed odd, even in the context of such odd happenstance. He hoped desperately that he did not encounter any two dimensional angler fish while he was down there. The three dimensional versions were so unpleasant that he honestly couldn't imagine their flatter counterparts to be any more agreeable.

What followed was a confusing, utterly nonsensical series of events that, to this day Milo cannot accurately put into words. Suffice to say the entire scene involved an octopus, a purple hovercraft manned by a creature he could only describe as the physical manifestation of the twenty sixth dimension compressed and reformed into a child's drawing of a seven legged dog, and a series of brightly colored dots floating around him in all of the limited directions available to him at the time. At least as much as any two dimensional thing can float on an equally two dimensional field. Which, as it turns out, isn't much. Also at one point he was a collection of moths attempting to hide their true identity in a convincing man suit. With admittedly varying levels of success. It was, in short, a hell of a thing.

After that the drug trip seemed to, at long last peter out. Lazily tapering off in its own time until he was once again transported back to a dingy, familiar dorm room, surrounded by the equally familiar faces of his friends. All of whom were busily laughing at him. It wasn't a particularly pleasant first trip as far as those sorts of things go. But it certainly wasn't terrible either, which was nice. Simply put, it was memorable enough to peak Milo's interest, and add psychotropics to the list of things worth doing when given the chance. They never quite reached the tender spot In his heart that pot had managed to fill, but still, they did become undoubtably dear to him. Something to use only on special occasion. The fine china and fancy hand towels of mind altering substances if you will.

And that is, more or less, the story of Milo's transformation. What, to him seemed to be an evolution, but was, from the perspective of his parents, a downward spiral. It could not be said that he hadn't changed. Grown from his father's son into a slightly muddled hippie who was distinctly himself. Which look better suited him was a matter of great debate among friends and family. Personally I don't really believe it's our business to say one way or the other. That's something for the individual to decide, not nearby observers. But, if pressed into an answer, I guess I would say that something in between would have been best. Not the paint by colors child he had been, stretched and moulded into what he should be by stubborn, if loving hands. Nor the ever so slightly addled young man, shiftless and burdened with a distinct lack of motivation. Made lazy by his own choices that, while not bad, weren't exactly good either. I think that maybe something in the center would have been a better choice, a little of column A and a pinch of column B as it were. But then, I'm a lover of middle grounds. If one is available in a situation, the chances are good that it will be my preference. Though, as I said before, it really isn't our business to judge.

Milo's plans for his twenty second birthday were typical fair, at least among his group of acquaintances. A simple idea, but no less enjoyable for its lack of complexity. He and a handful of friends would take a few unscheduled days off of their classes to drive a nearly five hour road trip that will take them from their dorm in Boston to a cabin just outside of Dexter Maine. The glorified hunting cabin was nestled in a little spit of trees barely big enough to pass for woods, a couple of miles north of civilization. Owned by Meg's family, as it had been for generations.

If you were wondering who Meg is, then congratulations, your a sharp one. If on the other hand you correctly assumed her to be one of Milo's previously mentioned acquaintances, then you should be proud. You are just a little bit sharper. Not that this is a competition. But had it been, you would have won. There were four of them, not counting Milo himself. Meg of course, a short girl with dark curls and more self assured passion and rough contempt towards the social contract than anyone Milo had ever met. Then Jack, a ridiculously tall, lanky giant of a man. As introverted and socially awkward as person could possibly be. He was the kind of man who looked as if he was trapped in a constant battle with genetics, fighting valiantly to make himself smaller even as his height continued to increase. Finally there were the twins, Bobby John and Mary Sue. Their names are terrible, everyone agrees, including Bobby and Mary. But tradition is tradition, and the siblings come from a very old, very southern family, where tradition means a great deal. Bobby is, more or less, exactly what one might picture in their mind when offered the words, college kid, burn out, and stoner. Long, dark hair perpetually draped in a slouchy, forest green knit beanie, two small rings perching either side of the outer corner of his lower lip, purposefully obscure band t-shirt and torn jeans, and an eternally glazed, glassy eyed expression to complete the look. Bobby was as easy going as any creature could ever realistically be while still considering itself evolutionarily viable. Due, in no small part to a fairly large amount of chemical assistance. Also he was the rare kind of casual drug dealer who was generally willing to dip into and share whatever he happened to have on hand with his close friends. So, from Milo's perspective, Bobby was an excellent person to know. And then there was Mary. Mary was all tan skin, wavy blond hair, and big brown doe eyes framed in just the right amount of winged eyeliner. She was beautiful to be sure, but not so beautiful that others might consider her remarkable. Mary had been a proper southern bell as a child but had rebelled with the shifting of teenage hormones. Unlike her brother's protests to their parents reign however, Mary hadn't let go of her roots so completely. It left her a heady mix of tempting rebellion and strict southern propriety. In short, a very dedicated tease. Unyielding in her demands of others and unbending in return. There were always suitors, always someone scrambling to prove themselves worthy until either she or they became bored and moved on. Milo, for his part never quite got the appeal. It seemed like an unreasonable amount of work, and he genuinely couldn't be bothered. But where one twin went, so to did the other, and Mary was never terribly unpleasant to hang out with. Not once she understood that no amount of flirting would ever pique his interest. She would always have Jack for that. He was head over heels in love with her after all, and she had developed a habit of using it to her advantage.

The drive was a pleasant one, filled with inane car games like I spy and the picnic game. As well as an increasingly violent game of punch buggy that was cut short when Meg had slugged Jack, the current driver, hard enough to momentarily send the the car careening towards oncoming tragic. Meg deemed the halt unfair, but agreed to the terms of the cease fire all the same. The group filled the empty spaces, of which there were a medium amount, with the comfortable buzz of one radio station or the next, and the smoking of a truly copious amount of pot. That last fact being the most likely reason the five hour drive ended up lasting the better part of eight. Cannabis is good for many things, but sadly, preventing distraction has never been one of them. There were well over a dozen unscheduled stops along the way, most of which lead to a fast food drive thru. As well as two separate incidents in which they became hopelessly lost, one very extended stay at a rest stop because Bobby was pretty sure he saw a deer near that bush over there and Meg found these really interesting hitchhikers sitting on some towels in the grass outside the bathrooms. So anyways, they invited everyone to share some road stories. And one rather embarrassing incident near the very end of the trip in which Milo sat at a stop sign for the better part of fifteen minutes waiting for it to turn green. It's safe to say they most certainly shouldn't have been driving at that point. Still, they did eventually make it. And, because they were privileged college kids skipping their classes for the better part of a week for an impromptu holiday, time was not of the essence. When they did manage to make it to the little wooden cabin, they were all content and more than a little pleasantly buzzed. Though words were never exchanged, they all seemed to agree that the extra hours had only added to the journey. And somehow made it just a little better. Even if they hadn't reached their destination until long after dark, making the majesty of the nature surrounding them a bit of a moot point until morning.

The cabin was small, as hunting cabins so often are. Two bedrooms and one bathroom lining a short hallway at the back of the house, a kitchen/living room combo near the front, and a wide loft accessed by a somewhat questionable ladder overhead. The water pressure was atrocious, and the electricity was spotty at best. It was dusty, perpetually drenched in a musty sent that came with very, very little use over the course of of the year. The furniture was well used, the couch was plaid, there was a stuffed coyote head hung over the mantle in place of a TV, and a large set of moose antlers hung on the wall near the front door primarily used for coats. It was terribly ugly. It was perfect. Meg immediately laid private claim to home's largest bedroom, as was her right as the only person close enough to the legal owners to count. The twins sauntered off to the second bedroom, Mary in front and Bobby behind haphazardly dragging their luggage. Because as I already pointed out, where one twin goes, so goes the other. That left the loft for Milo and Jack to share. The largest room in the house in terms of floor space, but also the most exposed. Milo considered it a fair enough trade off considering he would be rooming with the group's gentle giant.

After the motley crew had properly settled in they wandered back into the main room where they filled the rest of the evening with lax, hazy companionship. They drank a hand full of cheap beers still warm from the long drive, more or less succeeded in crafting s'mores utilizing the small fireplace below the mounted canine's cranium, and spent an unexpectedly long amount of time in a passionate discussion about the finer points of the original Scooby Doo cartoon and the deeper philosophical meanings it was trying to covey. But, slow and sure the conversation petered out sometime between early morning and late night as one by one those gathered wandered of to their respective resting places.

The next morning began with a drive into town for supplies. The car they had come in was small to begin with, and once stuffed with five people and their luggage, well, provisions would just have to wait until arrival. Mary and Jack immediately broke off from the group nearly the second they had reached Main St. Mary for the opportunity to shop in a new and not so exciting place, and Jack because someone would have to carry her purchases. Bobby wondered off shortly after that, a brief glance back and casual flick of his wrist the only farewell he seemed willing to offer. This was not unusual behavior for Bobby of course, so Meg and Milo were far from concerned. Wondering off seemed to be an integral part of his personality. The two remaining travelers were left to the groceries, a task they set upon with the sort of situational glee that can only come from the very hungry, and the very high. It would be safe to say that the pair were more than a little bit of both. A couple of short hours later the junk food was purchased and the wayward companions collected. A job well done by everyone's high standards.

The rest of the day was spent discovering the world around their cabin. There was the fire pit just outside the back door, and the hammocks scattered among the trees just beyond that. Then their were the zig zagging hiking trails, beautiful, every one of them. Waiting and eager to be explored. Each one winding intersecting patterns through the calm grove that surrounded the little house. Most eventually lead to the lip of Lake Wassookeag about a quarter of a mile away as the crow flys. The water was still hovering around the edge of too chilled to swim in this year, but that didn't mean they were adverse to making the attempt. Even if not completely successful, the group would still have the view. Calm and breathtaking in its own way.

That night they all gathered around the outdoor fire pit to cook, share idle conversation about the possible implications of a three truth system, spatiotemporal continuity of self, and their favorite X-Files episodes. Dinner was a beautifully unhealthy cornucopia of Americana. Two litters of Pepsi and Mountain Dew passed around and shared without the bother of glasses, multicolored piles of chips dusted in several unique artificial flavors, fat hamburgers dripping in still sizzling grease and smothered in thick, yellow slabs of mostly melted cheese, and a couple of scoops each of an odd amalgamation of ingredients called potato salad. No one ever actually ate potato salad of course, such a thing was absolutely unthinkable, but it's presence was an uncontested tradition for these sorts gatherings and so it was included none the less. The five not quite adults, but far from children gathered their paper plates plied high with food, warped themselves around each other, and watched the sun dip down below the tree line with easy smiles and affectionate quips aimed in each other's general direction.

After the meal they broke out the booze, big silly looking bottles of medium priced hard liquor they had no intention of finishing that night. And so began a truly entertaining game of never have I ever. Jack, as a general rule usually lasted the longest, being the most innocent member of the group. Mary and Milo settled some where in the middle, more experimental than most, but less exposed than others. Bobby and Meg on the other hand inevitably found themselves irresponsibly hammered in the first few rounds. There were very, very few times in which they did not typically drink. Thankfully knowing the outcome of the game never succeeded in making the game less enjoyable. Everyone staggered back to their respective sleeping places drunk and happy.

And so it went, on and on, for the rest of the week. Independent and group exploration and a hint of physically taxing outdoor activity coupled with lazy nights spent with good food and better company. Lather, rinse, and repeate. Milo's birthday came on a beautifully warm, cloudless Thursday, the potential of which excited all of them. With an exorbitant amount of fanfare the group decided to pool their money and rent a couple of jet skis to mark the occasion. It may have been true that Meg was the only member of the group who knew how to drive one, and her self proclaimed knowledge was shaky at best. It also may have been fact that neither Bobby nor Mary had ever bothered to learn how to swim, although in their defense they could at least float without much difficulty. But in the face of a jet ski on a lake comfortably warm for the first time since their visit, such information seemed inconsequential at best.

It was not, as it turned out, quite as unimportant as they had originally assumed. Which, in hindsight seemed like the most obvious thing in the world really. Suffice to say that, as far as adventures go, the incident with the jet skis would live on in unhappy infamy for years to come. An amusing story about unpleasant times. One of those it was funny, but not at the time, narratives. But that's a story for another time. It's not particularly important to the story at hand, and not nearly amusing enough to break stride with the plot in order to tell it. Although, in all honestly, I will admit to going on similar tangents in the past. But that was then and this is now! Besides, it's what happened that night that's really interesting. So, moving right along.

That night, after dinner was eaten and stories were exchanged the group began to pass out birthday gifts. Meg was first, offering up her customary gift of sex. It had become a tradition in the three years they knew each other. An odd custom that had somehow formed between she and Milo. One night of casual, attachment free sex extended at any special occasion that required the exchanging of gifts. There was nothing between them besides friendship understand. Honestly the idea of any sort of romantic relationship made both of them equally uncomfortable. But, after one very lonely, very drunken night spent in one another's company they had discovered that, despite all that they would never be, their bodies at least worked well together. Curving perfectly into one another's landscape, exchanging wet heat as they rocked in tandem, each entwined within the other. Fingertips and tongues scrambling in desperate exploration, overpowered in their need to feel and taste. Gentle enough to set skin ablaze with dancing sparks, bodies threatening to shake into atoms with the force of needy, unrelenting shivers. Rough enough to bruise and bleed, splitting skin and painting pleasure with pain in a downward spiral without beginning or end. Crushing together every soft line with the mutual need to dominate and possess. They worship, lay prostrate before the altar of the other's flesh. One beautiful thrust rolling seamless into the next, again and again, equal parts desperation and control. Tantalizing heat growing within them. Pluses of ecstasy and agony licking up and down their arching spines, dancing deep in the pits of their stomachs. Two becoming one, clawing and writhing in delirious rapture. Whispering prayers of release into each other's mouths. Until finally, the wave breaks and they come crashing back to earth in a hail of heady moans and jagged gasps. Everything stills and they embrace, warp around one another, allowed nothing save sensation. Alight in the glory of rapture they created. After the first couple of offers Milo had learned to take Meg up on her gifts, without fear of demanded commitment or awkward mornings. She only ever offered what she promised. And that night would be no different.

Jack's gift was slightly more material, but no less welcome. A veritable mountain of video games that left Milo smiling like an over eager puppy about to go for a walk outside. Goofy and genuinely elated. Being the children of rich parents certainly had it's advantages. In truth the gift was as much for Jack as it was Milo. They all knew it. The two were room mates, had in fact shard a dorm since their fist awkward years of independence. They had both changed quite a bit since then. Milo shifting quickly and dramatically into some new thing and wholly unrecognizable. Jack on the other hand, had evolved more slowly, remaining who he was to some degree even as he expanded into something different. While Milo loved video games with all the gleeful fervor of an average twenty something American male. Which is to say more than most things one would require to live, Jack love of the controllable art form was near obsessive. It is one of the things that had never, would never change about the man. So, when Jack gave Milo a video game it was more or less understood by everyone involved that what he was really offering up was the first play through of said game. Still a touching sacrifice for a man like Jack.

Mary's gift was, out of everyone, the most pedestrian. Not that Milo minded of course. While he enjoyed the girl's friendship they had never been the closest of companions. Really he was just touched she bothered. Mary gave him a burgundy cable knit scarf she had picked up at a shop somewhere, and a gift card for a mildly respectable sum from a book store near campus. Know for selling textbooks at a relatively reasonably price. While scarves weren't typically Milo's style, they lived in Boston. Ultimately no article of warm clothing went unworn come winter.

Bobby was last, and by his sly smile Milo had a fairly clear picture of what he picked out. He was proven right when Bobby retreated to his room with a wink only to come back with four small plastic cups of water.

"Though we could play who's got the pill for Mil's birthday. Mary already agreed to be our babysitter." He glanced around the room to a predictable sea of nods. And dawned a self satisfied smirk at the group's clear encouragement.

"So what's the pill then?" Jack asked with a lop sided smile. Tonight was going to be a lot more interesting that originally planned.

"LSD, if your up for it." Bobby answered already passing a cup into each eager hand.

"Shit, no wonder Mary is staying sober tonight." Meg sighed, tossing Mary a sympathetic nod of the head. Mary couldn't stand hallucinogens, although no one besides Mary and maybe Bobby knew why. She did however still enjoy watching, and more importantly laughing at, others getting high as a kite. And, she was surprisingly skilled at talking people down on the rare occasion that their trips turned sour.

"Ok gentlemen and Meg," Bobby began once the cups were passed out and everyone had situated themselves into a comfortable enough seat, "just in case anyone's forgot, rules are simple. Every one gets a cup, everyone drinks. One cup has a pretty fucking heavy dose of the good stuff. So we wait and see who ends up tripping the light fantastic. Once they're balls deep Mary will take 'em to be handled and the rest of us go in for round two. Then it's so on and so forth util all of us are tasting purple. We good?"

"Fuck yeah!" Milo all but giggles, voicing everyone else's excitement. The giddiness is starting to get to him now. The electric tingle of anticipation.

"Alright then, on three." Bobby smiles, "one, two, three!" The four all obediently tip their respective cups to their respective lips and drain the contents in one long pull.

After about forty five minutes of idle chit chat they got their answer. Jack looked up at the others with a hazy smile and announced, "so, the walls are starting to vibrate..."

"Winner, winner chicken dinner." Bobby beamed clapping him hard on the shoulder as Jack dissolved into a fit of happy giggles.

"Son of a bitch." Meg sighed, rolling her shoulders and arching her back in a cat like stretch. "How the hell does he always win first round?" She looked towards Jack for an answer but he only shrugged and laughed a little harder.

"Got to be lucky in something I guess." Milo shrugged.

"This is true." Jack nodded knowingly before he hauled himself up and made his way to the kitchen. "Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go grab a snack before I hit the peak, then I'm going to lay back, close my eyes and watch the fractals."

"Have fun." Milo waved off.

And so began round two. Bobby again ran to his room to fetch the cups of mostly water. Meg took her turn counting down with a wicked grin. And then, just as before they had the pleasure of waiting. This go took the better part of an hour. Jack, who was laying splayed out over the well worn, ugly couch, too long limbs drooping haphazard over the edges. He was just beginning to reach the peak. Well, he was if his whimsical mutterings and the looks of unrestrained wonder he was tossing the floorboard's way were anything to go by. Bobby wasn't lying when he had said the doses were strong. He'd be stuck in la la land for the better part of the next five hours by the look of things. Good thing he was enjoying himself then.

"Yep, it's me." Milo suddenly declared, trying not to focus on the too bright colors that had begun to leach noticeably into the little cabin.

"Fuck me!" Meg all but growled.

"Later, we have to come down first." Milo answered with a cheeky grin.

Meg laughed even as she flipped him off and leveled a well placed kick at his left shin. "Very funny asshole. Ok, so shall the losers trip together then?" She asked turning to Bobby with a waggle of the eyebrows.

"Impatient huh?" Marry chuckled from her seat by the couch.

Milo allowed himself to tune out of the conversation after that. With a wide grin he settled more comfortably into his little corner of the floor and began to focus on the feeling of intoxication that was starting to grow inside of him. He let the conversation wash over him. Fought to drift above the churning waters of ambient sound rather than allowing it to consume his awareness. "Relax, let go." He thought to himself as he continued to focus on sensation. Come ups could be difficult for him. It could be a challenge to embrace that not quite there ethereal feeling. Like hovering listlessly between the borders of real and altered. But if you could let yourself go, embrace the strangeness of it and relax into what it offered it could be pleasant. And more importantly, the trip proper was so much less likely to go bad.

So, show of hands, how many of you have ever experimented with LSD? No it's ok, you can be honest. I'm a book not a narc. Huh, well that's not terribly surprising really. Well, for those of you who aren't aware, there are four stages to an acid trip. The first is the come up. Simple enough concept, it's the build up in which, like a high school quarterback before a big game, the the drug will work itself up via enthusiastic pep talks, to full potency. Starts anywhere from a half hour to a full one from ingestion and lasts for about the same amount of time. The best way to describe the feeling would be something along the lines of, "it's like, you're high, and you know you're high. But you're not like high-high. You know? So hey, do you have like five bucks I could borrow?" At least that's the way that the woman who spends her days loitering uneasily outside the supermarket described it when I asked. And she seems like the kind of woman who knows things. Next comes the peak. As I'm sure you've already worked out by context clues like the good little reader I know you are, the peak is the most intense stage. It is the trip part of tripping if you will. This usually last anywhere between three to five hours long, and is where all the fun stories come from. It's what you are assumably trying to achieve. All the strange visions, seeing sounds, losing time, and leaving your body to go on a magical mystery tour around the neighborhood. After that there is the come down. This is, surprisingly to no one at all, more or less the come up in reverse. It lasts about the same time. The drug slowly but surly works it's way out of your system, reality falls back into its proper places, and you are made yourself again, assuming you weren't before of course. Well, I mean mostly yourself. Hallucinogens change people, "it's part of the fun in taking them," says grocery store lady as I pass her the five. And she would know right? The final stage is much more boring. It's the after effects stage, in which you recover from you're break in normalcy. This stage requires things like rehydrating, eating a nice snack, maybe taking a nap. Like I said necessary but not exactly compelling information. And so we will spend no more time thinking on it, and instead return to the tale at hand.

Milo was inching steadily towards the peak. The gossamer tongue of intoxication that had been licking wet, ethereal stripes across his consciousness, had begun to evolve into something more substantial. Solidifying almost casually around the edges. He was just beginning to see things that weren't there in the very corner of his vision. At least he though the way the bananas sitting on the kitchen counter subtly shifted position wasn't real. No one else seemed to notice.

Jack's journey was in full swing. Things had gotten a little dicey a few minutes ago when a turtle had crawled onto his chest, pressing down with an alarming amount of pressure. Certainly not something one would expect from a box turtle roughly half the size of a loaf of bread. Jack had gasped and arched his spine in an attempt to dislodge the creature with a vague sort of fear tickling at the back of his mind, whispering the word suffocation into the shell of his ear. Unfortunately the turtle seemed to be stubborn. Refusing to be unseated, and increasing it's weight by several ill defined percentiles in a clear attempt to communicate it's displeasure at his rude actions. Thankfully it's stay was only a temporary one. Once it was sure that it had gained Jack's somewhat strained attention it leaned it's head down and growled several nonsensical strings of Latin, spoken with an accent Jack could only describe as gritty. After a moment of hesitation he nodded to the turtle, not because he understood, but because it seemed like the polite response. And apparently it was, in fact what the impossible creature had been looking for. The amphibian smiled sweetly at it's captive in a gesture that seemed to Jack to be equal parts endearing and alarming before promptly exploding into a cloud of green glitter and multicolored confetti. Since then things had settled down, becoming much more pleasant.

Bobby and Meg had both begun to feel tickling sensations dancing listlessly through the wrinkles of their gray matter. The indication that a drug had been taken, that all was not quite as it had been. But the pair, for their part, had yet to be consumed by the oncoming drug induced stupor. Marry sat amid it all, sober as the day is long. Alternating between avidly watching mildly entertaining YouTube videos on her phone and occasional appraising glances around the room at her new charges. It was around this time that the world quite rudely decided to end.

Milo's take on the apocalypse felt equal parts unpleasant and unique. The first and most obvious reason for this being that he was tripping balls at the time. And yet, despite what would seem to be an obvious assumption, the LSD was a secondary complication rather than a cause to the disastrous experience. No the real problem turned out to be a matter of location. You see, nearly all of Maine, a sizable chunk of Canada, and the top bit of New Hampshire were all ripped to shreds by the awesome force of the merge. The land, as well as every unfortunate soul unlucky enough to exist within at the time was peeled away, revealing an angry, gaping wound marring the piteous planet's already scared surface. It would prove to be the largest nowhere on the new and thoroughly broken planet. And Milo and his friends happened to be lounging at its center.

For Milo it all began with a concussive boom. Though he couldn't hear the monstrous noise he could certainly feel it's repercussions. The vibrations, deep and obtrusive, shuddered through his chest. Coating to his ribs with a sort of heavy thickness that reminded him of molasses, before settling into the pit of his stomach. It felt as if the poor organ had been turned to something suspiciously similar to stone. His teeth rattled against his gums as the boom continued unbroken and seemingly endless, and his muscles seized under its heavy weight. Involuntarily tightening and relaxing in a continuing rhythm that kept him breathless, barely able able to take in enough oxygen in between spasms to keep his brain functional. To his left Mary collapsed out of her chair, her body contorting with the same violence that gripped Milo while the others looked on, so far unaffected and terribly afraid. Mary's body jerked as if it had been electrocuted, her mouth hanging open at its hinges, her eyes wild in their terror. Once, twice, and then relaxing into ominous stillness. Her's would be the first death of the evening, and by far the most merciful.

With a gut wrenching sob Bobby scrambled across the old wooden floor still on his knees, reaching desperately for his sister. At the same time Meg shifted towards the still seizing Milo. But of course, neither would ever reach their destination. The group's personal fates were in a far from generous mood. Today would be nothing less than punishing agony for all of them.

The world shifted into an all encompassing gray scale. Cold in a way that emptied a person to their soul. And having little to do with the temperature. Time slowed, first around them, and then within them. Senses dulled to an impersonal, clinical haze. And they were flooded beyond their will to resist with and empty depressiveness that seemed to hallow them from the center outward. Leaving a collapsing husk in lieu of the human each had been. Drowning helplessly in an unyielding sea of unease. Distantly John began to scream. His cries of confused horror drawn out beyond the capacity of his lungs in the wavering time scape of the new, grayscale world. The sharp, rich tones of horror transformed to something dull and droning to better match the emptiness. His agony utterly shineless. The others cringed away from his helpless degradation, retreating more deeply into their own loneliness. Fallen, fallen. All of them fallen in undocked bleakness. Blamed and faultless in their own, limitless depreciation.

As the screams continued, John began to fall to pieces. The corners of his lips and the fleshy webbing of his nose tearing at the edges in jagged lines painted hot and red. The only color, the only heat within the hellish, universal neutrality of this new and tangibly dissolving reality. And still he screamed on, both unwilling and unable to end what he had already begun. His sides tightened and ached, his throat trembled dangerously, and his ears rang with his own sound. And then, like seams popping on a well worn garment, flesh began to stretch and separate. Buckling under its own hefty strain. Cells shuddering apart in sticky clumps. Skin shredded, pushed well beyond the limits of its elasticity. Body burst by the uncontrollable fear of agony. Each strained tear growing far beyond its original boarders, and revealing more wet, red heat in its gaps. There was no room left for pleasure to fill in what remained of John's life. Only the push of ever growing, torturous anguish. Garishly ballooning outward to fill every empty space, consume every sense. The taste of cracked latex painted in hues of putrified green and sounding like nothing so much as the clattering eruption of pus left to sour under sagging skin. John's death was rancid tragedy. Messy and septic. A putrid sort of pain lacking in nobility. The giant of a man reduced to little more than a puddle of twitching, gurgling offal. Momentarily compelled to live despite its desperate drive to die. Stilling slowly and in segments of stinking flesh rather than all at once. No small mercy spared.

 

As the creature that had been John proceed slowly into death so too did the world proceed to its next stage of being for the three remaining survivors. Reality began to stagger uneasily like an unfortunate drunk forced to his feet after a brief, merciful lapse into unconsciousness. New horrors seeping in around twisting edges. And then, like conscious sound breaking through the white noise of radio static, two voices began to rise over the din. Goddesses both. Their respective songs different and distinct. Clashing against one another in harsh lines and rippling impact. Each melody cascading with the brilliant sparks of everything. The vile twang of repugnant rapture, and the subtle glorious hum of exquisite woe. The painful ecstasy of logical contradiction. Each the most elegant of paradoxes. Two omnipotent voices singing of two beautifully ugly everythings. It's absolute majesty thrilling beyond words.

But they brought with them impossible heat and light. Powerful forces that blinded and burned though they could neither be felt nor seen. Something unpleasant that grew under the skin. The phantom sensation rose as the two songs began to evolve around one another. Shifting from something uncomfortable and disconcerting into a writhing, torturous thing. Meg and Bobby cooked while Milo shattered.

Milo remained frozen in place on the floor, reeling in the grip of both the skittering hell scape of their newest reality, and the psychotropic drug warping an already nonsensical series of events. But on the other side of the small room Bobby and Meg, who sat tantalizingly close to one another reached out, the stretching of limbs slowed by pain, to embrace. Desperate for even the small comfort that came from the touching of skin on skin.

Meanwhile the radiating, invisible fire continued to grow with the cadence of the two songs. Flowing through the music, mirroring the ebb and flow of cascading notes, but always, perhaps inevitably growing. The pain was as searing as the music was dazzling. All three were left breathless with the warring contradiction of mind and body. And then, for the two huddled together on the now boiling ground, the bitter heat began to change. Evolving into something far more biting. Both Meg and Bobby began to drip, their skin quickly devolving into something closer to the consistency of heated silly putty. Embracing the laws of both gravity and their new found texture to run downward in messy little rivulets. Like the haphazard run off of a more elastic candle wax. There was neither the searing of cooked meat nor the charging of bone. Instead things chose to go a bit floppy. The usual sort of damage a body endures when faced with intense heat would have been far nicer. Their deaths were fast compared to many, but far more unpleasant than most, despite their speed. Two skin tones melting and mingling as they made their way from the tops of two heads to the blurring puddle of combined essence at their feet. Two beings turned to one in only the worst of ways. Boiling air hiss from two sets of lungs even as the openings to each melted closed, hair and clothing soaked in near liquid flesh as it fell away from formless bodies. Eyes boiled to pink mush and bones transformed into something new and ugly with all of the plasticity of wet cardboard.

Milo watched in absolute horror from his place on the other side of the room, battling through the agony of his own too intense heat. Although he seemed, for the time being, as physically solid and intact as he ever was. He sobbed desperately, writhing without end in the feeling of too much. The unfettered beauty of the music, the biting pain, and the perplexed befuddlement of such a damaged reality. And all of it compounded by this new wound of grief. Bleeding and raw in a way that the man, little more than a child, had never experienced.

Finally the music and horrible heat began to dim, slowly at first, and then all at once. And for a second the world was still, blank and placid in a way that could have very well comforted the only remaining soul. Would have, had the anguish of past events not been so stark. As it was, the calming quiet only managed to still poor Milo. Not entirely, but enough for a handful of less ragged breaths, and the unwinding of a few, choice clenched muscles. Then, for a single instant Milo ceased to be himself. He was a gas station clerk with blemished, slightly yellowed skin and crooked teeth named James. Working another pointless shift in a small station just outside of Anchorage Alaska off of Seward highway. He had wanted desperately to be a sculptor at one time. And though he'd certainly had the talent for it, in instead skill to pull art from raw material, he had always lacked the motivation and money required to follow through. And so here he was, trapped in this pointless job with neither motivation nor future. Depression feeding him honeyed lies about a life squandered, even as he lounged in the still tender age of twenty two. Barely at the beginning and already given up, if only for the time being.

With an uncomfortable shifting of consciousness Milo was within himself. Back nearly before he had even left. It was, confusing. But before he could dwell too deeply on the incident there was yet another shift. This one far more profound. And Milo became nothing. Unequivocal, conscious, nonexistence. Had he been able to feel anything, Milo no doubt would have been dismayed. Sadly however his existence had become far to questionable to make room for much more than a barely there sort of hazy awareness. It was unpleasant, but little could be done about that. Nothingness has little say in the flow of events. Truth be told, Nothing has little to do with events at all, as an event is most defiantly something. Nothings and Somethings are understandably unrelated, or at least they try to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly never meant for this to be so strange...


End file.
